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GOLF FACTS 

FOR 

YOUNG PEOPLE 




© Unjerwood & Underwood. 



FRANCIS OUIMET 



GOLF FACTS 

FOR 

YOUNG PEOPLE 

BY 

FRANCIS OUIMET 

ILLUSTRATED 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO, 

1921 






<> 



Copyright, 1914, 1916, 1920, 1921, by 
The Century Co. 



SEP 22 1921 



Printed in U. S. A. 



0)CI.A622902 



/^> "^ 



TO 
BARBARA 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I My Introduction to Golf .... 3 

II Advantages of Golf as a Sport . . 19 

III Golf Success and Youth Inseparable 30 

IV Competition and Tournament Play . 44 

V Watching the Play of Master- 
Golfers 59 

VI Value of Imitation 72 

VII Play Your Own Game ' 88 

VIII Value of Concentration .... loi 

IX Importance of Good Physical Condi- 
tion 1x6 

X Keeping Fit 130 

XI Golf in Bad Weather 144 

XII Imagination in Golf 158 

XIII Driving : Distance and Accuracy . . 167 

XIV The Advantage of Long Drives . . 180 
XV Until the Last Putt is Holed . . 193 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Francis Ouimet Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

Bobby Jones 32 

Chick Evans and Francis Ouimet 81 

Francis Ouimet in Action . 96 

Rudolf Knepper . ... . • . . . 129 

Fred J. Wright, Jr 144 

Francis Ouimet in Action ........ 177 

Jock Hutchinson .... ,.j l. . . . 192 



GOLF FACTS 

FOR 

YOUNG PEOPLE 



GOLF FACTS 

FOR 

YOUNG PEOPLE 

CHAPTER I 

MY INTRODUCTION TO GOLF 

BIG brothers'* have a lot of responsibility in 
life,, more than most of them realize. "Lit- 
tle brother'' is reasonably certain to follow their 
example, to a greater or less degree, hence the 
better the example set, the better for all coii- 
cerned. My own case is just one illustration. 
Whether I was destined to become a golfer any- 
way, I cannot say ; but my first desire to hit a 
golf ball, as I recall, arose from, the fact that 
my older brother, Wilfred, became the proud 
possessor of a couple of golf clubs when I was 
five years old, and at the same time I acquired 
the idea that the thing I wanted most in the 

3 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

world was to have the privilege of using those 
clubs. 

Thus it was that, at the age of five years my 
acquaintanceship with the game of golf began. 
To say that the game has been a wonderful 
source of pleasure to me might lead the reader 
to think that the greatest pleasure of all has 
been derived from winning tournaments and 
prizes. I can truthfully say that nothing is 
further from the fact. Of course, I am pleased 
to have won my fair share of tournaments; I 
appreciate the honor of having once won the 
national open championship ; but the winning is 
absolutely secondary. It is the game itself that 
I loVe. Of all the games that I have played and 
like to see played,^ including baseball, football, 
hockey, and tennis, no other, to my mind, has 
quite so many charms as golf — a clean and 
wholesome pastime, requiring the highest order 
of skill to be played successfully, and a game 
suitable alike for the young, the middle-aged, 
and the old. 

The first "golf course" that I played over 
was laid out by my brother and Richard Kim- 
ball in the street in front of our home dn Clyde 
Street, Brdokline, Massachusetts, a street 

4 



MY INTRODUCTION TO GOLF 

which forms the boundary of one side of The 
Country Club property. This golf course, as I 
call it, was provided by the town of Brookline, 
without the knowledge of the town's officials. 
In other words, my brother and Kimball simply 
played between two given points in the street. 
With the heels of their shoes they made holes 
in the dirt at the base of two lamp-posts about 
1 20 yards apart, and that was their "course." 

Nearly every afternoon they played,, while I 
looked on enviously. Once in a while they let 
me take a club and try my hand, and then was I 
not delighted ! It made no difference that the 
clubs were nearly as long as I was and too 
heavy for me to swing, or that the ball would 
only go a few yards, if it went at all. After 
all, as I look back, the older boys were only 
dealing me scanty justice when they occasion- 
ally allowed me to take a club, for when they 
lost a ball, I used to go searching for it, and, 
if successful, they always demanded its return. 
In the case of such a demand from two older 
boys, it is not always wise to refuse. 

"Big brother'' was responsible for getting me 
interested in golf; "big brother" likewise was 
in great measure responsible for keeping me in- 

5 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

terested. On my seventh birthday, he made me 
a birthday present of a club — a short brassie. 
Here was joy indeed! Not only had I now a 
club all my own with which to practise, but I 
already had amassed a private stock of seven or 
eight golf balls. The way this came about was 
that the journey from my house to school (this 
school, by the way, had only eight pupils in it, 
and the school-house was built in Revolution- 
ary days) took me past the present sixth hole 
of The Country Club course, and I generally 
managed to get a little spare time to look for 
lost golf balls. 

Some boys do not like to get up early in the 
morning. Any boy or girl who becomes as in- 
terested in golf as I was at the age of seven, 
will have no difficulty on that score. It was my 
custom to go to bed at eight o'clock, and then 
get up by six o'clock the next morning, and go 
out for some golf play before time to get ready 
for school. The one hole in the street where 
my brother and Richard Kimball first played 
had now been superseded by a more exacting 
golfing layout in a bit of pasture-land in back 
of our house. 

Here the older boys had established a hole of 
6 



MY INTRODUCTION TO GOLF 

about 130 yards that was a real test for them, 
and, at first, a little too much for me. On the 
left, going one way, the ground was soft and 
marshy, an easy place to lose a ball. If the ball 
went on a straight line from the tee, it gen- 
erally went into a gravel pit, which had an arm 
extending out to the right. There also was a 
brook about a hundred yards from the tee, 
when the play was in this same direction. Here 
then, was a hoie requiring accuracy ; and I can- 
not but think that a measure of what accuracy 
my game now possesses had its foundation back 
in those days when I was so young and just tak- 
ing up the game. I believe, moreover, that any 
boy or girl who becomes interested in golf 
should not pick out the easy places to play at 
the start, simply because they like the fun of 
seeing the ball go farther. 

What bothered me most, in those days, was 
the fact that I could not drive over that brook 
going one way. The best I could do was to play 
short of the brook, and then try to get the sec- 
ond on the improvised green. Every now and 
then, I became bold enough to have another try 
to carry the brook, though each time it was 
with the knowledge that failure possibly meant 

7 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

the loss of the ball in the brook, in a time when 
one ball represented a small fortune. At last 
came the memorable morning when I did man- 
age to hit one over the brook. 

If ever in my life a golf shot gave me satis- 
faction, it was that one. It did more — it 
created ambition. I can remember thinking 
that if I could get over the brook once, I could 
do it again. And I did do it again — got so I 
could do it quite a fair proportion of my tries. 
Then the shot over the brook, coming back, 
began to seem too easy, for the carry one way 
was considerably longer than the other. Con- 
sequently I decided that for the return I would 
tee up on a small mound twenty-five to thirty 
yards in back of the spot from which we usual- 
ly played, making a much harder shot. Success 
brought increased confidence, and confidence 
brought desired results, so that, in course of 
time., it did not seem so difficult to carry the 
brook playing either way. 

This was done with the old, hard ball, then 
generally known as the "gutty," made from 
gutta-percha. About this time I picked up, one 
morning, a ball which bounced in a much more 
lively fashion than the kind I had found pre- 

8 



MY INTRODUCTION TO GOLF 

viously. Now,, of course, I know that it was 
one of the early makes of rubber-cored balls., 
but, at that time, I simply knew that it would 
go much farther than the others, and that, 
above all things,, I must not lose it. That ball 
was my greatest treasure. Day after day I 
played with it, until all the paint was worn off, 
and it was only after long searching that I 
managed always to find it after a drive. 

Realizing that something must be done to re- 
tain the ball, I decided to repaint it, and did so 
with white lead. Next, I did something that 
was almost a calamity in my young life. To 
dry the white lead,, I put the ball in a hot oven 
and left it there for about an hour. I went back 
thinking to find a nice new ball, and found — 
what do you suppose ? Nothing but a soft mass 
of gutta-percha and elastic. The whole thing 
simply had melted. The loss of a brand-new 
sled or a new pair of skates could not have 
made me grieve more, and I vowed that in fu- 
ture, no matter how dirty a ball became, I never 
would put another in a hot oven to dry after 
repainting. 

All this time I had been playing with the 
brassie that Brother gave me, and all my 

9 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

energies were devoted to trying to see how far 
I could hit the ball. My next educational step 
in play came when Wilfred made me a present 
of a mashie, whereupon I realized that there are 
other points to the game than merely getting 
distance. Previous practice with the brassie 
had taught me how to hit the ball with fair ac- 
curacy, so that learning something about 
mashie play came naturally. Being now pos- 
sessed of two clubs, my ambitions likewise grew 
proportionately. The cow-pasture in back of 
our house was all right enough, as far as it 
went, but why be so limited in my surround- 
ings? There was the beautiful course of The 
Country Club across the street., with lots of 
room and smoother ground ; nothing would do 
but that I should play at The Country Club. I 
began going over there mornings to play, but 
soon discovered that the grounds-keeper and 
I did not hold exactly the same views concern- 
ing my right to play there. Whatever argu- 
ment there was in the matter was all in favor of 
the grounds-keeper. Of course I know now that 
he only did his duty when he chased me off the 
course. 

While my brother's interest in golf began to 

lO 



MY INTRODUCTION TO GOLF 

v/ane, because football and baseball became 
greater hobbies with him, other boys in our 
neighborhood began to evince an interest in it, 
until it became a regular thing for three or 
four of us to play in the cow-pasture after 
school hours and most of the day Saturday. 
We even had our matches, six holes in length, 
by playing back and forth over the one 130- 
yard hole three times, each using the same clubs. 
We even got to the point where we thought it 
would add excitement by playing for balls, 
and one day I found myself the richer by ten 
balls. But let me add that it is a bad practice 
for boys. There is too much hard feeling en- 
gendered. 

As we became more proficient in play, we be- 
gan to look over the ground with an eye to 
greater distance and more variety, until finally 
we lengthened out the original hole to what was 
a good drive and pitch for us,, about 230 yards ; 
likewise we created a new hole of about ninety 
yards, to play with the mashie. From the new 
green, back to the starting-point, under an old 
chestnut-tree, was about 200 yards, which gave 
us a triangle course of three holes. In this 
way we not only began gradually to increase 

II 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

the length of our game,, but also to get in a 
greater variety of shots. 

As I look back now, I become more and more 
convinced that the manner in which I first took 
up the game was to my subsequent advantage. 
With the old brassie I learned the elementary 
lesson of swinging a club and hitting the ball 
squarely, so as to get all the distance possible 
for one of my age and physical make-up. Then, 
with the mashie, I learned how to hit the ball 
into the air, and how to drop it at a given point. 
I really think I could not have taken up the 
clubs in more satisfactory order. Even to this 
day, I have a feeling of confidence that I shall 
be sure to hit the ball cleanly when using a 
brassie, which feeling probably is a legacy 
from those old days. 

And a word of caution right here to the boy 
or girl, man or woman, taking up the game : do 
not attempt at the start to try to hit the ball as 
far as you have seen some experienced player 
send it. Distance does not come all at once, 
and accuracy is the first thing to be acquired. 

The first time that I had the pleasure of 
walking over a golf course without the feeling 
that., at any moment, I would have to take to my 

12 



MY INTRODUCTION TO GOLF 

heels to escape an irate greens-keeper was when 
I was about eleven years old. I was on The 
Country Club links, looking for lost golf balls, 
when a member who had no caddy came along 
and asked me if I would carry his clubs. Noth- 
ing could have suited me better. As this mem- 
ber was coming to the first tee, I happened to 
be swinging a club, and he was kind enough 
to hand me a ball, at the same time asking me 
to tee up and hit it. 

That was one occasion in my golfing career 
when I really felt nervous., though by this time 
I had come to the point where I felt reasonably 
confident of hitting the ball. But to stand up 
there and do it with an elderly person looking 
on was a different matter. It is a feeling which 
almost any golfer will have the first time he 
tries to hit a ball before some person or persons 
with whom he has not been in contact previous- 
ly. I can remember doubting that I should hit 
the ball at all, hence my agreeable surprise in 
getting away what, for me, was a good ball. 

Evidently the gentleman, who was not an 
especially good player himself, was satisfied 
with the shot, for he was kind enough to invite 
me to play with him, instead df merely carrying 

13 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

his clubs. He let me play with his clubs, too. 
That was the beginning of my caddy ing career. 
Some of the other members for whom I carried 
clubs occasionally made me a present of some 
clubs, so that it was not long before my equip- 
ment contained not only the original brassie 
and mashie, but also a cleek, mid-iron, and put- 
ter. 

Needless to say, they were not all exactly 
suited to my size and style of play; yet to me 
each one of them was precious. I took great 
pride in polishing them up after every usage. 
The second time I played with the gentleman 
who first employed me as caddy, I had my own 
clubs. I had the pleasure of playing with him 
two years later, after he came home from 
abroad,, in which round I made an 84, despite a 
9 at one hole. 

All this time, my enthusiasm for the game in- 
creased, rather than diminished, so that, dur- 
ing the summer I was on the links every mo- 
ment that I could be there until school opened 
in September; after which I caddied or played 
afternoons and Saturdays until the close of the 
playing season. 

Somewhere along about that time I had a 
14 



MY INTRODUCTION TO GOLF 

most trying experience. My brother Wilfred, 
who,, being older, had become better posted on 
the technical side of the game, advised me to 
change my swing. I had been using what was 
more or less of a baseball stroke, a half-swing 
that seemed to be all right so far as accuracy 
went, but was not especially productive in the 
matter of distance. Wilfred's advice struck 
me as sensible — almost any golfer, young or 
old, thinks well of advice that bids fair to 
lengthen his game. 

At any rate, I altered my swing, taking the 
club back much farther. For the succeeding 
two months I discovered that my game, instead 
of improving, gradually was getting worse. 
The old-time accuracy was missing. More than 
that, a good many golf balls also soon became 
missing, for in playing on my old stamping- 
grounds — the pasture in back of the house — I 
seemed to have the unhappy faculty of getting 
them off the line into the swamp, where to find 
the ball was like looking for a needle in a hay- 
stack. 

Being quite disgusted, I tried to go back to 
my old style, only to find that that, too, was im- 
possible. Here was, indeed, a dilemma! On 

15 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

thinking it over^ there were only two conclu- 
sions to reach : one was that to become at all ac- 
curate in either the old style or the new, meant 
to make up my mind to use one of theni per- 
manently, and then simply to keep on practising 
in the hope that accuracy would come ; the other 
was that even though the new style had im- 
paired my old game, at the same time it was 
plain to be seen that, in the long run, it probably 
would be the better style of the two. Under the 
circumstances there was only one thing to do, 
and that was to continue with the longer swing. 
Perhaps then I did not realize the full sig- 
nificance of the choice. I do now. Had I kept 
on with the old swing, the result would have 
been that I probably would have advanced to a 
certain proficiency so far as accuracy goes, but 
my game would have been stilted, and lacking 
in the variety of shots which not only betters 
the standard of play, but which gives all the 
more personal satisfaction to the player. It 
was possibly two months after I took Brother's 
advice that I began to notice a gradual improve- 
ment. I began to hit the ball with the same 
certainty as of old, and, to my delight, found 
that the ball traveled farther than I ever had 

i6 



MY INTRODUCTION TO GOLF 

been able to hit it before, and also with less 
expenditure of effort. At first the added dis- 
tance was at the expense of direction, but it was 
not long before my control over the new swing 
became nearly as good as of old. 

Back in those early days of my golfing career, 
I can remember an incident which taught me 
the lesson of always being honest with myself 
or with an opponent in the matter of scoring. 
The Country Club arranged for a caddy tour- 
nament,, — I think it was the custom then to 
have these tournaments late in the fall, when 
they would not interfere with the members. At 
any rate, this particular tournament happened 
to come on a day when there was snow on the 
ground. The boys, however, were so keen for 
play that this little handicap did not bother 
them. 

Some of them had less reason to be both- 
ered than others. They were the ones who felt 
that it was much easier to leave out five or six 
holes in the course of the round and "guess" 
what they would have done at these holes. I 
can just remember that scores as low as jy to 
80 were handed in to the officials in charge, 
and that soon there was a wrangle over the cor- 

17 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

rectness of some of the figures returned. The 
upshot of it all was that, after considerable 
argumentation, it was decided that no prizes 
should be given at all. 

It was a good lesson for all of the boys con- 
cerned, though a little hard on those who had 
tried to do what was right. The sooner a boy, 
or a man for that matter, learns to live up to 
the motto "Honesty is the best policy" in golf, 
as in other things, the better for him. There is 
no game which gives a competitor a better op- 
portunity to cheat; but for that very reason 
there is no game in which the cheat,, when dis- 
covered, as he usually is sooner or later, is 
looked upon with greater contempt. 



i8 



CHAPTER II 

ADVANTAGES OF GOLF AS A SPORT 

GOLF is slowly, but surely, coming into its 
own as a great American sport. Yet 
less than ten years ago nearly everybody was 
inclined to look upon it as a game suitable only 
for those of ripe age. This opinion was 
formed because it lacked the strenuousness so 
noticeable in football, baseball, and tennis. 

Quite evidently all this has changed. To-d^y 
thousands of boys and girls play the game. I 
take keen delight in this fact, all because I hap- 
pened to be one of the first boys to adopt golf 
as his favorite game while attending school, 
instead of following the usual paths leading to 
diamond or gridiron. At the time I decided in 
favor of golf, it was no simple and easy choice 
to make. For one thing, I was subjected to a 
lot of pressure from my schoolmates to con- 
tinue with the nine, and, for another, rather 

19 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

felt the censure they sometimes placed upon me 
for forsaking this sport for golf. Perhaps an 
incident that occurred during a recent trip to 
Pinehurst, where so much golf is played every 
winter, will best explain the position of golf 
among boys of to-day and among those of 
yesterday. 

While playing there on this occasion, I had 
the good fortune to meet an old school-friend 
of mine. He had recently become an ardent 
golf enthusiast, one who rarely misses creating 
an opportunity for playing. We had both at- 
tended the Brookline High School at the time 
when he was the unquestioned leader in ath- 
letics. Incidentally, he was captain of our 
baseball nine. 

I was particularly fond of baseball in those 
days,, although I must confess I never could 
play it when a golf match was in sight. Never- 
theless, I was persuaded to try for a place on 
our school nine, and, in the course of the prac- 
tice, seemed to have a fine chance of making it 
at second base. About this time I was elected 
captain of our golf team. That put the ques- 
tion up to me of giving up one or the other of 
these garner. I cduld not hbfd dbwn the two 

20 



GOLF AS A SPORT 

positions without making a failure of each one. 
After thinking the matter over for a short 
time, I decided in favor of golf. Immediately 
I was sought out by both the coach and captain 
of the nine,, who argued with me to change my 
opinion. One of their favorite points was, as 
I clearly reoall it now, that golf was an old 
man's affair and that I was somewhat silly, 
to put it mildly, to forsake a corking good game 
like baseball for it. But their entreaties and 
arguments failed to make me retract my first 
decision. This caused me to be the butt of 
many uncomplimentary remarks for a long 
time thereafter. 

Now the reason why I had chosen golf was 
that I felt, once my school-days were over, 
baseball would be a thing of the past, whereas 
with golf I could continue to play that game 
long after I had set aside my books for a busi- 
ness career. It seemed to me that the best time 
to fit myself for the game that I could play 
during most of my life would be during these 
school-days I was then enjoying; and I did 
want to play the game well. That is the only 
way to play any game or do anything in this 
world, for that matter. Good golf meant 

21 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

nothing to me but keen outdoor enjoyment in 
the years to come. And now that I look back 
to the time when I made this decision, I am 
more than satisfied that I "guessed right." 

Nothing brought this point to my attention 
more clearly than meeting my old school-friend 
at Pinehurst — ^the one who had argued so 
strongly with me to forget all about golf be- 
cause it was an old man's game and for this 
reason to stay out for the ball nine. He told 
me that he recalled the whole incident most 
clearly, and could now say with all frankness 
that I was right in having decided as I did. 
Furthermore,, he was of the opinion that he had 
wasted golden opportunities to improve his 
golf game by not taking to golf, instead of to 
baseball, when we had been in school together. 

Not long ago I talked with a Princeton grad- 
uate who was there in the days of Heyniger, 
their great baseball pitcher. He recounted for 
me a story quite similar to my own in connec- 
tion with Heyniger. The latter, he said, liked 
golf better than any other game he had ever 
tried, but was unable to give much time to it 
while at college because he was virtually com- 
pelled by the pressure of the college to pitch on 

22 



GOLF AS A SPORT 

the nine. Heyniger did rank as a star boxman, 
but since his college days he has never risen 
to a very high rank in golf. Indeed, he may 
not be playing at all well. I am inclined to 
think this man misses a lot of enjoyment to-day 
because he did not follow his favorite game 
earlier in life and at the tme when he could 
more readily have learned to master it. But 
our colleges are now beginning to see matters 
differently, if we read aright. They are com- 
ing to realize that it is a waste of time to 
instruct students along Hues that are of no 
future value, whether the course be in athletics 
or in scholarship. One college that I know of 
in my home state is even teaching its students 
the art of golf-course construction. Rather a 
sign of progress, I should say. 

Perhaps the outstanding proof that golf is 
at last being recognized as a sport worthy of 
the consideration of every boy of athletic in- 
clination is that the list of young golfers is 
increasing by leaps and bounds all over 
America. Boys and girls are taking up the 
game with equal satisfaction and enjoyment. 
That they can boast of being equal to any 
competition is rather clearly proved by the 

23 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

careers of Bobby Jones and Miss Alexa Ster- 
ling of Atlanta, who are right at the top in 
amateur circles. 

In 19 19, when I went to the Oakmont Coun- 
try Club at Pittsburgh to play in the amateur 
championship, I received one of the most 
pleasant surprises of my life. It had been my 
good fortune to attend seven of the last eight 
of these events,, and I can say that, with an oc- 
casional exception, the favorites were always 
the stars of former years- — all seasoned golfers 
and men. Thus,, when I started for Pitts- 
burgh, I thought that I would be one of the 
youngest players to enter, this in spite of the 
fact that I then boasted of being twenty-five 
years of age. But let me say I was destined to 
receive a great surprise, for, after looking over 
the field of prospective champions, I felt like a 
grizzled veteran. There seemed to be dozens 
of fine players entered not then twenty years 
of age. 

That tournament, as you probably remem- 
ber, was won by S. Davidson Herron, a youth 
of but twenty-two, and the runner-up was that 
star of stars, little Bobby Jones, of Atlanta, 
just seventeen years old at the time, while three 

24 



GOLF AS A SPORT 

of the four semi-finalists averaged twenty 
years. 

All of which leads one to the conclusion that 
golf, rather than being an old man's pastime., 
is the game of youth. As I figure it out in my 
own case, I expect to play good golf for the 
next twenty-five seasons, but I can see no 
chance for any one over forty taking an Amer- 
ican title. 

A word or two about Bobby Jones, this 
youngest of golf stars, to illustrate how he has 
won such a high position in the golfing world. 
Perhaps you remember that in the amateur 
event at Merion, in 1916, he was finally de- 
feated by Bob Gardner, of Chicago, who had 
several times held the title. Bobby Jones 
learned much of his game from Stewart 
Maiden, a splendid professional teacher. But 
with due credit to Maiden for his remarkable 
ability at imparting his own knowledge to 
others, I doubt if Jones would have been as 
successful had he not been a fine imitator. An 
imitator is usually a good player. In fact, 
there is scarcely an exception to this rule. I 
know that I picked up a lot of golf by this 
method., and I can remember the time when I 

25 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

could imitate the strokes and play of almost 
any golfer I saw play. And I have seen Walter 
Hagen, our wonderful professional, demon- 
strate in succession the golf swings of such 
stars as Barnes, Brady, Hutchinson, Mc- 
Namara,, and others with such exactness a to 
detail that, had you been far enough away to 
be unable to recognize him, you, would instantly 
have thought that the man being imitated was 
playing a round on your course. 

There are many ways of learning golf, but 
the most expedient is to get in touch with a 
professional who knows the game and can 
adapt you to it. Although practice does tend 
to make one perfect, there are certain aids to 
practice which will save you time in your quest 
of a knowledge of this game. The profes- 
sional who knows the game can give you these 
schemes, while quickly checking any tendencies 
on your part to develop bad habits, otherwise 
not easily eliminated, once they are allowed to 
go on. But under no conditions forget to 
watch the swings and styles of good golfers. 
One can get a ready, first-hand knowledge of 
all that goes to make up a good game by doing 
just that. You catch the ideas of golf and see 

26 



GOLF AS A SPORT 

the reasons for them by following this method, 
and you certainly can learn how the strokes 
should be played. 

I, for one, would not advise a boy or girl to 
play golf if he or she does not like the game. 
One cannot enjoy a sport he does not like, nor 
ever become proficient in it. It takes an un- 
bounded enthusiasm in whatever you attempt 
to make a success of it. Good golfers love 
golf. They are enthusiastic over it. My own 
thought is that one of the main reasons for 
this strong love for the game is that it takes 
one outdoors during the three seasons — spring, 
summer and autumn — when nature is most 
beautiful. True, one could walk about the 
woods and gentle slopes and get much pleasure 
and recreation from it. But golf gives one 
both a reason and a cause for being abroad in 
the sunlight that no other sport quite supplies. 
Unconsciously, you drink deep of health and 
happiness because the quest of the game keeps 
you keenly at play, rarely tiring. This is be- 
cause your mind is occupied. 

Boys who have been trout-fishing know what 
I mean. Far from camp and tired, one fre- 
quently wonders if he will ever get back. Then 

27 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

the trout begin to strike,, and before you know 
it, you are again at the camp-fire, having never 
once thought of the long walk down stream 
as the fish were taking the fly. That is the 
kind of exercise doctors tell us is most bene- 
ficial. Indeed, golf is a game unlike any other 
sport. 

Golf itself affords more pleasure to its fol- 
lowers than any other. Next to it, I think 
tennis will take rank, because it may also be 
played for so many years. Yet tennis, great 
game that it is, must yield to golf in the matter 
of age. Golf, enjoyable golf, is yours for a 
lifetime if you so wish. Children may play it, 
and many is the golfer of skill I know to-day 
who has passed the seventy mark in the span 
of life. What other game offers you such con- 
stant companionship? 

Boys and girls too frequently make the mis- 
take of thinking that they can never rank hi^li 
as golf players. I believe this is untrue, all 
because the reverse has been proved quite fre- 
quently. If they have enthusiasm for the game 
and will give the time to practice when they 
are young, good play becomes almost auto- 
matic. Perhaps one cannot rise to champion- 

28 



GOLF AS A SPORT 

ship ranks, but that is certainly not the real 
test of the game, else but few of the millions 
who play it each year would get any fun out 
of it. 

To my way of thinking, the lure of golf 
rests in your ability to play a fair game, one 
that averages well with that of your friends. 
Once you reach that state, you have arrived 
in golf at that delightful period when each 
round holds for you a keen enjoyment whether 
you be sixteen or sixty. That^ I take it, is the 
real test of any sport. 



29 



CHAPTER III 

GOLF SUCCESS AND YOUTH INSEPARABLE 

A FEW years ago it would have been a 
most difficult matter to have induced a 
youngster to cast aside his baseball glove and 
bat for a mid-iron and golf ball. And you 
could not blame the boy. Unquestionably, his 
greatest pleasure was to be had in the game of 
*'scrub" that he played with his schoolmates. 
Even to-day it takes a great deal of persuasion 
on the part of a father to get his young son 
interested in golf; that is, unless he happens 
to live on the border of some golf-links and, 
in addition, there is no neighboring baseball 
diamond or football gridiron. Just the same, I 
think the youngster — or the father, for that 
matter — makes a mistake in not taking up golf. 
In my boyhood days I was less fortunate 
than the average youngster of to-day, because 
our baseball games were invariably played 
upon a much traveled highway where passing 

30 



GOLF SUCCESS AND YOUTH 

teams and machines interrupted us far too fre- 
quently. There was no field adjacent to our 
homes which we could convert into a play- 
ground. It was the road — or golf. When an 
automobile did not put a stop to our play, we 
were vexed in other ways. Balls were easily 
lost, or the policeman of that neighborhood 
curbed our ambitions to become the present- 
day Ruths and Cobbs. There was the country 
club, where golf was played, and we did at- 
tempt to convert this fine course into a dia- 
mond,, but only to find that our ambitions again 
ran counter to the power which held sway. We 
soon came to the conclusion that this property 
was for golf, and so we used it for that pur- 
pose. 

How well I recall our ball games on the 
street. The picked-up nine which was at bat 
had other duties to perform than the all-impor- 
tant one of pounding in runs. It was up to this 
"side" to post one of its players at the turn, 
down the road, where he might easily note the 
movements of the policeman. As soon as this 
officer started our way, we would clear out at 
a signal, previously agreed upon,, from our 
watchman. As a result of constant vigilance, 

31 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

we became so familiar with the habits of this 
representative of the law that I really think 
we knew in advance, even better than he did, 
where he would be at given periods during the 
day. There were many reasons why this was 
important information for us, since the ball 
game could only be completed if we selected the 
proper hour for starting. And we had much 
the same difficulty with golf. There were times 
when we could escape the watchful eyes of the 
grounds-keeper, but this did not enable us to 
use the links unless we also evaded the police- 
man. 

All this seems to have little to do with the 
subject of youngsters playing the game of golf ; 
yet I think it has. First of all, golf demands 
the proper setting. As boys, we had no play- 
ground other than the highway and the golf- 
course, although we did eventually improvise 
a three-hole affair in a cow-pasture, secure in 
the knowledge that play here was not to be 
interrupted. That and early hours on the 
links, — usually very early ones, — ^when the 
grass was still wet with dew, gave us our first 
experiences with golf. We found it as attrac- 
tive, and as fine a test of skill and strength 

32 




([D Underwood & Underwood 



BOBBY JONES 



GOLF SUCCESS AND YOUTH 

as the other sports which were more generally 
followed in those days. And some few of us 
came along fairly well as players. Indeed, I 
am convinced that environment had everything 
to do with us, just as I am sure that some 
youngsters from my neighborhood who are 
showing up well at golf owe their present suc- 
cess to the fact they live where they do. 

There is proof of the importance of environ- 
ment in other and far-off parts of this country ; 
for instance, the outstanding example of 
Bobby Jones, of Atlanta, who, at nineteen 
years of age was well up in the U. S. Open 
Championship at Toledo in 1920. He won his 
first championship when he was only thirteen 
years old, thereby knocking into a cocked-hat 
the saying that golf is a game for older people. 
In 19 1 6, he not only qualified in the U. S. 
Amateur championship, but won two of his 
matches before going down before Gardner, 
a former champion, in a brilliant battle. Jones 
was then only fourteen years old, and one of 
his victims was a former amateur title-holder, 
Eben Byers. For a boy playing in his first big 
tournament, this was a never-to-be-forgotten 
exhibition of skill and nerve. 

33 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

Now nothing in the world but nearness to a 
golf-course made such a remarkable perform- 
ance possible. Of course,, Bobby Jones is the 
unusual boy, one in a thousand, but there is no 
denying that other young chaps would do al- 
most as well. Another factor that helped him 
was the aid of a very good professional, Stew- 
art Maiden, who took delight in steering him 
along the proper path when he noted the boy's 
keenness for golf. Jones was always going to 
the club to practise or play. The game caught 
his fancy, just as baseball caught the fancy of 
some of us and most of our "dads" when they 
were boys. It was helped along, too, by rivalry, 
for he found another youngster who was 
equally keen for the game. There is no gain- 
saying the fact that the presence of his friend 
Perry Adair meant much to his golf. That 
kept up his enthusiasm and insured him a great 
golf future. 

While on the subject of Bobby Jones, it 
might be well to correct a false impression 
about him. Much has been written about his 
lacking the ideal golfing temperament. At the 
Oakmont Country Club, in the summer of 
1919, he played S. Davidson Herron for the 

34 



GOLF SUCCESS AND YOUTH 

amateur championship of the country, and be- 
cause he lost, it was said he had a temper. 
While there,, I had the good fortune to be 
able to study him closely and also to play with 
him. I availed myself of this chance to judge 
for myself, because these stories about him 
had already been printed. I found Bobby 
Jones one of the best players and most ideal 
sportsmen I ever met. It makes me hot all 
over to read such statements about him. Let 
me tell you right now that his temper needs 
no curbing, as one report hinted. Watch him 
play a few important matches, as I have, and 
you will agree with me that his sole uneasiness 
comes at a time when he is leading. One thing 
more about this youthful marvel: his game is 
without a flaw! Most boys of his age are apt 
to let their free playing muscles enter too 
prominently into their game. Their fault is 
that they play their various clubs alike. But 
Jones is a veteran in this respect. 

That gets us down to the technical side of 
golf, so I might as well explain what I mean, 
by citing an example from a recent match I 
played with a youngster. We were having 
quite a struggle and in due course came to the 

35 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

fourteenth hole. From tee to green, the meas- 
urement was 140 yards, though this distance 
was really equivalent to a hole of about 115 
yards because of the elevated tee. It is an easy 
mashie shot. A forced mashie-niblick will 
sometimes carry one home. Now the tendency 
of a youngster is to force his iron shots, and 
it is one that he must overcome early in his 
career. The first essential in iron play is to 
keep the ball on the line. There is no better 
way of doing this than to learn what you can 
comfortably accomplish with each club. On 
this occasion, I came to the fourteenth tee with 
the scant lead of one up. I could ill afford to 
offset this advantage by a mistake on my part. 
Consequently, I selected a mashie which was 
good for 160 yards, had I chosen to play to my 
limit. My first object, therefore, was to make 
sure that the ball carried in the general direc- 
tion of the hole. Next, I had to make sure of 
my judgment of the distance. I figured it a 
three-quarters shot, a shot wherein the club is 
taken back about that fraction of the distance 
you bring it back for driving. My ball landed 
nicely about fifteen feet from the pin. 

To my surprise, my opponent selected a 

36 



GOLF SUCCESS AND YOUTH 

mashie-niblick, and, with a full swing, sent his 
ball curving off to the left and many yards 
beyond the green. He was somewhat in a daze 
over the result, and, when he saw the club I 
had used, was greatly surprised to think that 
his ball, played with a much less powerful club, 
had gone far beyond mine. I won that hole 
easily, and, with it, the match. My young 
friend left the course with a fine,, but costly, 
lesson to his credit. 

I learned many like it, myself, before I 
finally came to the conclusion that it was much 
easier, and certainly more satisfactory, to 
choose a club that would carry well beyond the 
distance needed, than to take one from the bag 
with which I had to strain in order to make the 
carry. There was a concrete example of this 
very thing in the Open Championship at To- 
ledo, in 1920. There were many young pro- 
fessionals in this event who drove almost as 
far as the powerful Briton, Ted Ray, the win- 
ner. This was a wonderful feat. But in play- 
ing the next shot,, it was quite noticeable, so 
I am told, that Ray used a mid-iron, whereas 
these other contestants relied on their mashies. 
Ray simply knew he could get on with the 

37 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

longer club without forcing the shot. The 
others, straining to the utmost to reach home, 
were frequently finding trouble. 

Reference to the Open Championship at 
Toledo calls to mind the fact that none I can 
recall, better served as a stimulant to young 
golfers. There was young Bobby Jones, al- 
ready spoken of, playing in his first Open, but 
performing in splendid style. That he suc- 
ceeded in placing himself among the first ten in 
the classic of American golf is certainly en- 
couraging to young players. And there was 
Harry Vardon of England, the greatest player 
of all time. Vardon won his first title in 1896, 
six years before young Jones was born. Al- 
though fifty years of age and leading the field 
in this big event after fifty- four of the seventy- 
two holes had been played, there was nothing 
about his game which showed his years. At 
the finish he was one stroke behind the winner. 
His game held out till the last stroke had been 
played; and except for the severe physical 
strain he went through, he might have won. 
Think of it, boys, here was a lad of eighteen 
and a man of fifty each playing great golf in 
our most important event! And you can put 

38 



GOLF SUCCESS AND YOUTH 

It down as a fact that one thing only kept 
Vardon in the fight right up to the finish — it 
was nothing else than that he began playing 
early in life. Vardon began playing when 
quite young, otherwise his game would have 
failed him during that critical and long test 
of skill. And you can rest assured that Bobby 
Jones will be another like him. At fifty, he 
will be playing as well as he does to-day and 
having just as much fun. 

Let me ask you if there is another game you 
know of that will give you the same amount of 
fun, competition, sport, and health all through 
life as does golf? I think you will agree with 
me there is no other. Age bars football by the 
time you graduate from college. Baseball 
stars have been known to reach almost forty 
before being discarded. Occasionally, a tennis 
champion may have thirty or more summers 
to his credit, but there is no other sport that 
does not yield the odds to youth, and its full 
flush of strength, except golf. Here is Vardon 
at Mty playing well beyond most of our cham- 
pions; and just a few years back, Walter 
Travis, almost ten years older than Vardon is 

39 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

to-day,, was playing golf on even terms with 
all of us. 

I am inclined to believe older and wiser men, 
those who have to do with our educational 
problems, will take note of the value of golf 
in making plans for the curriculum of the 
lower grades at school. It would be a splendid 
move were instructors appointied to give the 
youngsters lessons in the fundamentals of the 
game once or twice a week. In my own days 
at school I recall one period that came two or 
three times a week, and, although it was com- 
pulsory, it was by far the most popular hour 
of those days when it came. This was known 
as the physical-training period. The idea v/as 
to give the pupils a little exercise as well as 
a change from the monotony of study. Would 
not golf fill the bill even better? To be sure, 
there would be many schools where links 
would be out of the question, but here the 
students could easily be given "a course of 
sprouts'' in swinging a club and in bending the 
body in the same way one would do in exe- 
cuting a shot. Pivoting from the hips, which 
in golf is highly important, would be a fine 
exercise in itself. This may appear somewhat 

40 



GOLF SUCCESS AND YOUTH 

silly at first glance, but when one is constantly 
on the links one is duly impressed with the 
need of just such a thing. 

There is one school I know,, for boys of 
twelve and under, where they do play a great 
deal of golf after school-hours. It is an inter- 
esting and pleasing sight of an afternoon to 
witness these little chaps playing with their 
small clubs. They may not follow the game 
as keenly as other boys may do with baseball 
and football, but they will soon reach that age 
in life when they will acknowledge a debt of 
gratitude to their masters of to-day, because 
they will not be hopelessly outclassed in play- 
ing about the only game possible to them, once 
they become breadwinners. 

At the Woodland Golf Club, recently, I 
watched Charley Burgess, the club's profes- 
sional, teaching a girl of about seven years 
old. It did my heart good to see her free, 
easy, and graceful swing. It will not be long 
before she will be the envy of her elders. A 
youngster has only to be started in the proper 
manner to become most proficient at golf. 
Their natural aptitude at imitation will soon 
mold them into players of promise. If they 

41 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

delay until they reach manhood and woman- 
hood, there is never any certainty that even a 
good steady game will result. To show that 
this is so, it is only necessary to point out that, 
in American golf history, only one player has 
risen to national prominence who took up the 
game when a full-grown man. This was 
Walter J. Travis. But Mr. Travis was able 
to rise to the top only because he devoted his 
entire attention to golf. Failing health, I be- 
lieve, forced him into the open air and sun- 
shine. His reward was that he was able to 
play on even terms with almost any star in the 
world up to the time of his retirement in 19 17. 

These are the reasons why I would urge 
boys and girls to give attention to golf. Not 
that I would have the former entirely cast 
aside their bats, gloves, and footballs, for that 
would be asking too much. These represent 
strenuous games any boy loves to play and to 
excel in, and they do him much good. At the 
same time, he would be penny-wise and pound- 
foolish, once he thinks of his future,, to give all 
his spare time to baseball, football, and hockey, 
if it is at all possible to play and practise golf. 

That our football stars feel this way about 
42 



GOLF SUCCESS AND YOUTH 

it was brought to my attention recently during 
a practice golf match between Ed Garbisch, 
once captain and guard of the Washington and 
Jefferson football eleven, and his first college 
coach, Sol Metzger. Both are excellent ath- 
letes and fine fellows but they did not take up 
golf until recently. At the end of the 
round they were bemoaning their poor luck. 
'^I like this game better than any I ever played, 
and would do almost anything to be able to 
play it well/' said Garbisch. "So would I," 
remarked Metzger, "but I reckon we started 
in a bit late to make good.'' 

Now these two men have played about every 
game under the sun and played them fairly 
well. Yet each acknowledges that he made a 
great mistake in not having taken up golf when 
in school. It is the one game they can play 
in the future. And the future, upon leaving 
college, is many times as long a part of one's 
life as are one's school-days. The time is com- 
ing when you boys and girls who read these 
lines will feel the same way about it; that is, 
unless you learn the game now when you are 
young and well able to master most of its 
fundamentals. 

43 



CHAPTER IV 

COMPETITION AND TOURNAMENT PLAY 

A SURPRISING number of golfers who 
have won high honors on the links, first 
came into prominence during their school-boy 
days,, and had their early experiences in golfing 
competition while participating in interscho- 
lastic tournaments or championships. I think 
I am correct in classing among such the former 
national amateur champion, Jerome D. 
Travers; the runner-up for the 1913 cham- 
pionship, John G. Anderson ; a former national 
titleholder, Eben M. Byers; Frederick Her- 
reshoff, runner-up to H. H. Hilton for the 
national title in 191 1; Charles E. Evans, Jr.,, 
the national amateur champion for 1921, not 
to mention many others. For myself, I can 
look back upon my golfing days while a pupil 
in the high school at Brookline, Massachusetts, 
not only with a feeling of pleasure then derived 
from the game,, but also with the conviction 

44 



TOURNAMENT PLAY 

that a great many points which I learned then 
have since stood me in good stead. 

It was as a school-boy golfer that I first had 
that feeling of satisfaction which comes in 
winning a tournament, and it was as a school- 
boy golfer that I learned a few things which 
perhaps may be useful to some boys who are 
pupils in school now and who are interested 
in golf. It was in 1908, that I took part for 
the first time in an interscholastic tournament, 
at the Wollaston Golf Club, and I may as well 
say, right here, that I did not win the title ; the 
fact is that I barely qualified,, my 85 being only 
one stroke better than the worst score in the 
championship qualifying division. The best 
score was 74, which I must say was extraordi- 
narily good for such a course as that on which 
the event was played. It is a fine score there 
to-day for any golfer, even in the ranks of the 
men. In my first round of match play, fortune 
favored me,, only to make me the victim of its 
caprices in the second round, when I was de- 
feated 2 up and I to play by the eventual win- 
ner of the championship title, Carl Anderson. 
It was inability to run down putts of about 
three feet in length which cost me that match, 

45 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

and, to my sorrow, I have passed through that 
same experience more than once since leaving 
school. But what I recollect distinctly about 
that match, aside from my troubles on the 
putting-greens, was that I felt nervous from 
the start, for it was my first "big'' match. I 
mention this because it has its own little lesson, 
which is that the chances of winning are less 
when the thought of winning is so much on 
the mind as to affect the nerves. 

In 1909 I won the championship of the 
Greater Boston Inter scholastic Golf Associa- 
tion, the tournament being played at the Com- 
monwealth Country Club,, Newton, Massachu- 
setts. Only one match was at all close, that one 
going to the sixteenth green. The final, at 
thirty-six holes, I won by 10 up and 9 to play. 
In that tournament I learned a lesson invalu- 
able, which was to avoid trying to play every 
shot equally well with my opponent. In other 
words, there were boys in that tournament 
who were vastly my superiors in long hitting. 
Frequently they were reaching the green in 
two shots where I required three, or else they 
were getting there with a drive and a mashie 
shot where I required two long shots. But, 

46 



TOURNAMENT PLAY 

fortunately, I was of a temperament at that 
time which enabled me to go along my own 
way, never trying to hit the ball beyond my 
natural strength in order to go as far as my 
opponent, and making up for lack of distance 
by accuracy of direction and better putting. 
My advice to any boy is to play his own game, 
irrespective of what his opponent does. This 
does not mean, of course, that a boy should 
lose his ambition to improve his game, or that 
he should be content with moderate distance 
when he might be able to do better. But the 
time for striving to do better is not when am- 
bition is aroused merely through the desire to 
win some one match or to outhit some oppo- 
nent. The average boy or man who strives in 
some one match to hit the ball harder than 
he does normally, generally finds that, instead 
of getting greater distance, he is only spoiling 
his natural game. Then, the harder he tries, 
the worse he gets. Greater distance on the 
drive, as well as accuracy in all departments 
of the game, comes through practice and nat- 
ural development, rather than through the 
extra efforts of some one round. 

In that tournament at the Commonwealth 
47 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

Country Club, which gave me the first cham- 
pionship title which I ever held in golf,, there 
were a number of players who subsequently 
have achieved successes in athletic lines, sev- 
eral of them having become prominent for 
their skill in golf. Among these was Heinrich 
Schmidt, of Worcester, Massachusetts, who in 
the spring of 19 13, made such a great showing 
in the British amateur championship. Even 
at that time, "Heinie," as we called him, was 
a more than ordinarily good golfer, and he 
was looked upon as one of the possible winners 
of the championship. It was one of his Wor- 
cester team-mates, Arthur Knight, who put 
him out of the running, in a match that went 
two extra holes. ''Heinle's'' twin brother, 
Karl, who looked so much like him that it was 
difficult to tell the two apart, also was in the 
tournament, and among others were the late 
Dana Wingate, afterwards captain of the Har- 
vard varsity baseball nine; Forrester Ains- 
worth, half-back on the Yale football eleven 
in 191 3, and Fletcher Gill, who later played 
on the Williams College golf team. 

The following year, 19 1.0, I was honored 
with election to the presidency of the Greater 

48 



TOURNAMENT PLAY 

Boston Interscholastic Golf Association, which 
did not, however, help me to retain the cham- 
pionship title,, for that year the winner was 
Arthur Knight, of Worcester. 

This interesting tournament was played on 
the links of the Woodland Golf Club at Au- 
burndale, Massachusetts, and in the qualifying 
round I was medalist, with a score of 77. 
Singularly enough, I had that same score in 
winning my match of the first round, and also 
had a yj in the second round; but on that oc- 
casion it was not good enough to win; for 
Francis Mahan, one of my team-mates from 
Brookline High School, was around with a 
brilliant 73, whereby he won by 3 up and 2 to 
play. It was beautiful golf for a boy (for a 
man, either., as far as that goes), and the loss 
of the title, under such circumstances, left 
nothing for me to regret. It always has struck 
me that for any one who truly loves the game 
of golf, there is even a pleasure in being de- 
feated when you have played first-class golf 
yourself, and have been beaten only because 
your opponent has played even better. It cer- 
tainly was so in that case,, and I was sorry that 
Mahan could not keep up the gait in his other 

49 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

matches. He was beaten by the eventual win- 
ner of the tournament, Arthur Knight, in the 
semi-final round, Knight winning the thirty- 
six-hole final by 2 up and i to play from R. W. 
Gleason, later a member of the Williams Col- 
lege team. 

From my own experiences in school-boy 
golf, I should be an enthusiastic supporter of 
any movement tending to make the game a 
greater factor in the athletic life of school- 
boys, or, for that matter, in the colleges. I do 
think, however, that it should come under more 
direct supervision of older heads, and that boys 
should be taught not only how to play the 
game, but that they should have impressed 
upon them the fact that it is a game that de- 
mands absolute honesty. 

I have known instances where, in school-boy 
tournaments,, scores have been returned which 
were surprisingly low, and there have been oc- 
casions when such scores, appearing in print, 
have brought a tinge of suspicion upon the 
boys returning them. Such instances would be 
rare if proper methods were taken to explain 
to the boys that golf is a game which puts them 
strictly on their honor. They should be taught 

SO 



TOURNAMENT PLAY . 

to realize that winning is not everything in the 
game ; that a prize won through trickery, either 
in turning in a wrong score or moving the ball 
to give it a more desirable position, gives no 
lasting pleasure. Any boy winning a prize by 
such methods would in later life want to have 
it out of sight. Every time he looked at it, he 
would have a feeling of contempt for himself 
for having adopted dishonest methods. Under 
proper supervision, golf can be made a great 
agency in the schools for the development of 
character; a game which will teach the boy 
to be honest with himself and with others. 

As president of the Greater Boston Inter- 
scholastic Golf Association for one year, I nat- 
urally had an opportunity to get a thorough 
insight into the manner of conducting a school- 
boy tournament, and I have one or two ideas 
which may be worth setting forth. One is 
that, in the qualifying round of a school-boy 
tournament, every effort should be made to 
pair boys from different schools,, instead of 
having the pairings hap-hazard or allowing 
the boys to pair up according to their own de- 
sires. One of the greatest advantages of a 
school-boy tournament, aside from its develop- 

51 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

ment of a boy's competitive skill, is that it 
brings boys from different schools and districts 
into closer relationship ; new individual friend- 
ships are formed, and a possible spirit of an- 
tagonism gives way to a wholesome rivalry. 
Golf being a game where there is no direct 
physical contact between the two boys, pro- 
vides a happy medium for the intermingling 
of many boys of all ages and sizes, to form new 
acquaintances,, expand old ones, exchange 
ideas, and engage in a game which has much 
more vigor to it than the average school-boy 
realizes. 

Probably more than one first-class golfer has 
been lost to the world of golf through a defeat 
administered to some promising player in a 
school-boy tournament. It is a singular fact 
(perhaps doubly so to one who has been so 
enthusiastic over the game from childhood as I 
have been) that many boys become apathetic 
over the game after losing a match which they 
hoped, perhaps expected, to win; whereas if 
their team lost in baseball or football, they 
would be just as eager to go in to win the next 
game on the schedule. But in golf, the indi- 
vidual alone bears the brunt of his defeat; he 

52 



TOURNAMENT PLAY 

cannot deceive himself into the idea that it was 
his neighbor, rather than himself, who was re- 
sponsible for losing. He should bear in mind 
that in golf no one is immune from defeat, and 
that when an opponent is winning a match, it 
is far better to study the methods by which he 
is gaining the mastery than to bemoan the 
fickleness of fate. 

In the second place, the boy who is down- 
hearted has little chance to regain lost ground, 
whereas by plodding along and doing his best, 
there is no knowing what may happen to turn 
the tide. To illustrate this point, with the hope 
that the reader will not think I am trying to 
exploit my own success, I shall not soon forget 
a match which I had as a school-boy against 
John G. Anderson, a master in the Fessenden 
School at West Newton, Massachusetts, and 
runner-up for the national championship in 
1913 and 1915. 

This match was an occasion when the Brook- 
line High School team played a team repre- 
senting Fessenden School. The boys of Brook- 
line were older and larger than those of Fes- 
senden, so Mr. Anderson was allowed to play 
for the latter in order to help equalize matters. 

S3 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

It fell to my lot to oppose him. Of course I 
had not the slightest expectation of winning, 
but resolved to do the best I could, at any rate, 
and make the margin of my defeat as small 
as possible. With such a state of mind, my 
play was better than I could have dreamed 
possible. Twice during the round I holed chip 
shots from off the green, and, almost to my 
own consternation, as I recall it, I defeated 
Mr. Anderson, putting in two rounds of 36 
over the nine-hole Albemarle course. I hope 
Mr. Anderson will forgive my telling this, if 
he happens to see the account ; my reason being 
to assure every boy that in golf there is always 
a chance to win, no matter how stiff the odds 
may seem in advance. 

Sometimes I think that there is no better 
mental attitude, going into a match, than the 
one I had when I played that match with Mr. 
Anderson. It has seemed to me that the aver- 
age school-boy golfer is a bit prone to getting 
himself worked into a state of high nervous 
tension thinking about his match to come and 
wondering what his chances are of winning. 
He begins to worry over the outcome hours 
before the match., and perhaps has a more or 

54 



TOURNAMENT PLAY 

less sleepless night from the knowledge that in 
to-morrow's match he faces one of the favor- 
ites for the school-boy title. Consequently, he 
neither has his full mental nor physical equip- 
ment with him when it comes to the actual 
playing of the match, and the least bit of hard 
luck is apt to throw him off his stride. 

Now every school-boy golfer should bear in 
mind that one match does not constitute a golf- 
ing career. It is not possible for two to win 
in the same match, and the other boy's hopes 
of winning are just as strong as yours. Even 
if he wins to-day's match, there are many to- 
morrows coming, when it may be your turn to 
come out on top. Then there also is this to 
be borne in mind: the boy who defeats you in 
one match may be your opponent in a subse- 
quent tournament,, and, in the second instance, 
the result is reversed. Therein is double satis- 
faction, for if he is playing as well as he did 
in the first instance, you must be playing con- 
siderably better, and there is pleasure, also 
encouragement, in that thought. 

A boy should learn,, as one of his fir^t lessons 
in golf, that it does not pay to get ''mad," to 
use that common expression. Bunkers are put 

55 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

on a golf course not to provoke any player's 
wrath, but to compel him to play a scientific 
game. If the player gets into one of these 
bunkers, it is not the bunker's fault, but his 
own. If he could only teach himself to take 
that point of view,, he might almost bring him- 
self around to the point where, instead of utter- 
ing some angry word over the situation, he 
would beg the bunker's pardon for having 
disturbed it. That, perhaps, may be using a 
millennium viewpoint, but,, after all, is n't that 
the proper view to take of the matter? 

Nothing is gained by getting angered over 
the outcome of any particular shot. During 
my school-boy days, I remember playing a 
match once with a boy who might have be- 
come a good player only for his temper. He 
could not, apparently, bring himself to see that 
the more worked up he became over his bad 
shots, the less chance he had of making a good 
one. We were playing a match on a Boston 
course,, and at the fourth hole he topped a 
shot into long grass, then played a poor second, 
and immediately walked over to a tree, where 
he smashed the club with which he had played 
the second shot. At the next hole, he sliced 

56 



TOURNAMENT PLAY 

into some woods, failed to get out on his sec- 
on4, and deliberately smashed another good 
iron. Before he had played the home hole, he 
had thrown away his putter. 

How much chance had a player with that 
disposition to improve his game? Further- 
more, no boy should enter a match without 
realizing that his feelings are not the only ones 
to be considered. He has an opponent, and 
even though the other is an opponent,, in a 
competitive sense, at the same time each is 
supposed to be playing the game for the en- 
joyment there is in it, and when one player 
gets provoked to a point where his temper al- 
together gets the better of him,, there is not 
much chance for the other to gain any pleasure 
out of a round. 

The school-boy age is the most advantageous 
period for acquiring a good style of play. The 
muscles are pliant, the swing is free, and the 
average boy is apt to have a good, natural 
swing even without any instructions. For all 
that, he should, if possible,, seek a little advice 
from those older and better experienced in the 
game, in order not to get some bad fault in his 

57 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

swing which, as he grows older, will prove ad- 
verse to his game. 

Perhaps the idea may not be practicable,, but 
I cannot see why it would not be possible to 
have a little elementary instruction for the 
pupils in the city high schools on the proper 
method of swinging the club. Why would it 
not be possible for a city to hire a golf pro- 
fessional to demonstrate, in school gymnas- 
iums, the proper method of swinging the club? 

Faithful effort and earnest endeavor to im- 
prove one's game as a school-boy are apt not 
only to lead to success in the school-boy com- 
petitive ranks, but they pave the way to later 
successes on the links in a more general way. 
Moreover, beyond the high school there is the 
college, and intercollegiate golf has quite a 
ni^he of its own, beckoning the school-boy to 
enter its circle. Nearly every school-boy who 
is at all athletically inclined and who has am- 
bition to go to college would like to shine there 
in some branch of sports. He may not be 
physically endowed for football; he may lack 
the requisite qualities to make the baseball 
team, the track team, or the rowing squad. At 
the same time, he might be a leader in golf. 

58 



CHAPTER V 

WATCHING THE PLAY OF MASTER GOLFERS 

MANY a school-boy in scoffing at golf as 
a namby-pamby game, not to be men- 
tioned in the same breath with football, track- 
athletics, baseball, and other sports of their 
ilk, does not stop to think of the more lasting 
benefits which he might derive from the game 
he derides. Of its joys he knows nothing, 
never having experienced them ; he looks upon 
golf with a vague sort of feeling that some 
day, when he is getting along in years,, he may 
take up the game to be "in the fashion." Mean- 
time, something more vigorous for him in the 
athletic line! 

Fortunately for themselves, as I look at the 
matter, there are a great many boys who form 
an unalterable attachment for golf, and whose 
identification with the game as school-boys is 
only the forerunner of years of pleasure on the 

59 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

links. To continue their play after school- 
days,, naturally they either have to join a club 
or to have their rounds on a public course. 
Regarding the latter, there is not the slightest 
doubt in my mind that public courses have 
played an important part in the development 
of the game in America, both among the young 
and the older players. Scores of boys who 
have enjoyed golf while in school have not been 
in a position, financially, to join a golf or coun- 
try club immediately after their school-days 
are over, yet have continued their play by mak- 
ing use of such links as the Franklin Park 
course in Boston,, Van Cortlandt Park in New 
York, and Jackson Park in Chicago. 

The average school-boy golfer becomes am- 
bitious to join a golf or country club from the 
time that he takes part in an interscholastic 
tournament. He sees the members come in, 
go to their regularly assigned locker, sit down 
to a luncheon for which they merely sign a 
slip of paper, and do other things with an air 
of proprietorship that has a certain fascina- 
tion. The school-boy golfer, too,, would be a 
member and enjoy all these privileges. He 
would like to rub elbows with men of promi- 

60 



WATCHING MASTER GOLFERS 

nence in the community, — for in the golf and 
country clubs are to be found *^big men," men 
of influence in the city, the state, or the country 
at large. 

Any youth who joins a golf or country club 
and who lays too much stress upon the privi- 
lege of merely signing checks for luncheons 
and such things,, is apt to get a bit of a shock 
when those checks, like chickens, "come home 
to roost/' They all have to be paid, sooner or 
later, so, if he is a golfer in moderate financial 
circumstances,, he had better not be overgen- 
erous with either himself or his friends in the 
early stages of his club life. This may sound 
a little like preaching, yet it is a fact that club 
life sometimes has an unfortunate influence 
upon a young man, especially if he gets started 
in the wrong way. 

On the other hand, for the young golfer who 
is willing to hold a modest place in the club, 
there are a host of advantages. There is no 
denying that in golf he does have the opportu- 
nity to mingle with the finest class of people, 
intellectually and socially, and if he is properly 
observing and discreetly curious, he can learn 
a great deal in several directions, and in par- 

6i 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

ticular many things which will improve his 
game of golf. 

Doubtless it is true that one reason why the 
general standard of play in this country is not 
higher is that devotees of the game are so 
keen for playing themselves that they are not 
willing to put in a little more time in follovv^ing 
and observing the methods of the better 
golfers. We know that on the other side of 
the Atlantic it is nothing unusual for even such 
great professionals as Vardon, Ray, Braid, and 
Taylor to spend some of their time watching 
each other play. George Duncan, perhaps the 
most brilliant golfer in the world to-day, says 
unrestrictedly that his game is a composite of 
the styles of such players as those named 
above. Therein is his own confession that 
what he is as a golfer is largely the result of 
watching the play of the masters. 

I can advance no stronger argument for 
driving home the idea that it pays to study the 
strokes of good players as well as to practise 
to perfect our own. And I think I am abso- 
lutely correct in saying that any young golfer 
who is ambitious to learn will always find good 
golfers ready to give him the benefit of their 

62 



WATCHING MASTER GOLFERS 

experience and observations. Right here is 
one of the greatest features of the game. The 
finest players, professionals or amateurs, are 
forever trying to learn new points, and they 
rarely hesitate to divulge any point in connec- 
tion with their own game. In other words, 
while there may be keen individual rivalries 
among the golfers, the greatest rivals may fre- 
quently be seen comparing notes on the best 
method for playing different shots. 

There are many things for the young player 
to learn, aside from the best method for play- 
ing different shots. One golfer might pitch 
directly at the flag at a certain shot, while in 
your opinion the run-up would be the more 
natural. You might find, by questioning (but 
never at an inappropriate time), that this par- 
ticular green is softer than the others on the 
course. Or, again, a golfer might play a run- 
up where the more natural shot would be the 
pitch; only you find that he knows the ground 
is too hard to get good results from a pitch. 
These are matters which have nearly as much 
to do with success in competition as the ability 
to hit the ball correctly, and they are points 
which must be learned through experience. 

63 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

Sometimes there are marked differences in the 
character of the turf and soil on different holes 
of the same course. The experienced golfer 
gradually learns to form an estimate of such 
changing conditions, even by noting whether 
ground is high or low, and judging whether 
the low land has much moisture in it. 

These points, of course, do not enter imme- 
diately into the game of the younger golfer, 
but they are injected merely to emphasize the 
advantage of being observant. 

On this very point,, I once had a good lesson 
taught me. Together with Ray R. Gorton and 
H. W. Stucklen, prominent players of the Bos- 
ton district, and Captain Albert Scott, also of 
Boston, who has a collection of wonderful 
photographs of famous golfers in action, I was 
visiting at the Garden City course on Long 
Island. Walter J. Travis and John M. Ward 
of the Metropolitan district were there, and 
after a round of golf, we went into the club- 
house, where a discussion began of the way 
different shots were played. Mr. Travis, who 
probably has made as deep a study of the game 
as any man in the world, began to explain how 
he played different shots. His explanations 

64 



WATCHING MASTER GOLFERS 

opened my eyes in two ways. One was that 
I was rather astonished to hear him tell so 
clearly and minutely exactly how he played 
each shot, so that any person who had watched 
him play as closely as I had could have a clear 
mental vision of each movement of his club 
and body. The other thing that struck me 
most forcibly as I listened to his explanations 
was how little I actually knew about how I 
played shots myself. Put the club in my hand 
and let me get out to play a shot, and I felt 
confident of being able to play it in a reason- 
ably skilful manner; but to sit down and tell 
somebody else how I did it I realized was be- 
yond me. 

From that time to the present, it has been 
my aim not only to try to play the shots cor- 
rectly, but to know how and why I play them 
a certain way. Therefore my suggestion to 
the young golfer — any golfer for that matter: 
to study his own game as well as that of others. 
I '11 admit that at first it is not a very easy 
thing to do, especially for the golfer who is 
not sure of hitting the ball at all true. Doubt- 
less he feels that he has trouble enough obey- 
ing the cardinal principle of keeping his eye 

6s 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

on the ball, taking the club back in approved 
fashion, and such like,, without trying to pay 
heed to anything else. 

But a golfer can do something like this : he 
can take a dozen balls, for practice, and change 
his stance several times to note results. He 
might try placing the ball directly abreast of 
him and about half-way between his feet, with 
an open stance. Drive a few balls from that 
position and note the general results. Then 
he might try driving the ball from a position 
more in line with his right foot, and next time 
with it more abreast of his left foot. He doubt- 
less will note,, if he still stands about the same 
distance from the ball, that each stance brings 
its own general results. With one he finds that 
he is more apt to get the ball down the middle 
of the course, another seems to develop a ten- 
dency to pull, and another to slice. 

Of course, I should not advise beginners, or 
even those who have made moderate progress 
in the game,, to spend a great deal of time on 
such experiments merely for the sake of know- 
ing how to slice or pull at will. My suggestion 
is that such experiments occasionally are ex- 
cellent correctives; as, for example, when a 

66 



WATCHING MASTER GOLFERS 

golfer finds himself continually pulling or slic- 
ing. It may not be that his stance is at fault 
at all, but that he is pulling his hands in to- 
ward him when he plays the shot, thus coming 
across the ball and slicing it, or that he is 
pushing his hands out. This I will say about 
experiments,, however, that they at least incul- 
cate in the golfer the idea of being something 
more than an automaton in the game. Every 
golfer naturally would like to be able to play 
with mechanical precision, but at the same time 
the average golfer would enjoy his own pre- 
cision far more by knowing exactly "how he 
does it.'' 

The more one studies his own game, too, the 
more discerning he becomes in noting the good 
and bad points of some one else's play. As I 
have said before, there can be a great deal 
learned from watching good golfers. A person 
may note the stance taken by the proficient 
golfer; how much he bends his knees; how he 
holds his head; how far back he carries his 
club; how he finishes the stroke; how he grips 
his club. It should be borne in mind, though,, 
in watching a first-class golfer to pick up 
pointers, that what the first-class golfer m,ay 

67 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

do is not always a good method to follow. It 
might be impossible for the rank and file. Ed- 
ward Ray is a mighty driver, but there prob- 
ably are not a great many others who could 
drive exactly as he does and get good results. 
The more a player observes, the more readily 
will he pick up the point which is going to help 
his game, and cast aside the peculiarity which 
is not safe to follow. 

In suggesting that the young golfer would 
be wise in spending some of his time watching 
others,, rather than playing himself, I know 
I am counseling something which hardly will 
appeal to many who delight in playing. They 
want the fun of playing. That is what they 
are in the game for ; that is why they are mem- 
bers of a club. Yet I can truthfully say that 
one of the keenest pleasures that I can have 
personally is in following a couple of good 
golfers playing a round. It is almost as good 
as playing an exceptionally fine shot yourself 
to see some one else get up and hit the ball 
exactly as you would wish to see it hit or to 
do it yourself. You know just how you would 
feel after making such a shot, and you are 

68 



WATCHING MASTER GOLFERS 

mentally exhilarated by seeing some one else 
do it. 

There are other things, too, which cannot 
fail to impress themselves upon a person of 
normal observance who watches the play, we '11 
say, of two skilful professionals. He will see 
these men strive., not necessarily to get down 
the middle of the course, nor as far as they 
can from the tee, but to place the ball at some 
particular point which is more advantageous 
for the second shot. They will drive, let us 
say, well to the left at a certain hole, trusting 
in their own skill to keep them away from 
trouble that looms up on that side,, merely for 
the sake of playing their second shot from a 
point where they can see the green. To drive 
straight down the middle would be lots safer, 
but it might leave the ball where the green 
would be hidden from view. It is little things 
like that which mark the difference between the 
golfer who continues gradually to improve in 
his play and his scoring and so many others 
who reach a certain point and there seem to 
stick. 

For the younger player joining a club and 
hoping not only to become a good player, but to 

69 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

make a favorable impression upon older mem- 
bers and get along well in the more social side 
of club life, I would suggest that it is more 
advisable to be a good listener than to do a 
great deal of talking. To listen to men of ex- 
perience discuss the game, or, for that matter, 
to hear their views on various topics, is to gain 
many points which may prove valuable. By 
that I do not by any manner of means suggest 
that the younger member should eavesdrop or 
try to hear something not intended for his ears. 
Many golfers are apt to give a wide berth to 
the man who is inclined ever to talk about his 
own game. He wants to explain every victory 
and every defeat; how if his shot to the four- 
teenth green had not hit a stone and bounded 
off the course, he would have won the match, 
or how lucky his opponent was in holding an 
approach at the fifteenth. The great thing to 
remember is that what has happened to you, in 
one particular match or round,, has happened to 
many others, and will happen to many more, so 
it has not even the merit of being newsy; unless 
there should happen to be some extraordinary 
occurrence, such as hitting a bird in flight or 
killing a fish in a brook. 

70 



WATCHING MASTER GOLFERS 

For the young man, also (and this,, too, may 
sound like preaching), my advice is to steer 
clear of that part of the social life which in- 
cludes liquors. As this is not a book on tem- 
perance, however, I will say nothing more on 
that score. 



71 



CHAPTER VI 

VALUE OF IMITATION 

IN the matter of trying to imitate the style 
and methods of players who have made 
their mark in golf, discretion must be used. 
Many golfers would never amount to much as 
drivers if they followed,, exactly, the style of 
J. J. McDermott, former national open title- 
holder. They might devote a great deal of time 
and effort trying to master his long, flat 
swing, only to find in the long run either that 
they could not hit the ball on the nose, so to 
speak, or else that they could not hit it accu- 
rately. On the other hand, they might choose 
to fashion their style after that of Alex Smith, 
also a former national open champion, whose 
comparatively short swing has an added at- 
traction from the very fact that it looks so 
simple. Yet they might fail to take into ac- 
count the exceedingly powerful forearm that 

72 



VALUE OF IMITATION 

the latter professional has, and which makes it 
possible for him to get a power into the short 
stroke which few could hope to duplicate. 

Different players have their individual pe- 
culiarities, and the more a new-comer in the 
golfing ranks watches the leading exponents 
of the game, the more readily he recognizes 
these peculiarities., and abstains from incor- 
porating them in his own game. For my own 
part, in my earlier experiences at golf, I took 
particular pains to watch such players as John 
G. Anderson, Arthur G. Lockwood, and other 
Massachusetts amateurs who had achieved dis- 
tinction on the links, before I ever thought of 
being able to compete with them on even terms. 
I noticed that Mr. Anderson had a habit of sort 
of gathering himself together and rising on his 
toes during his upswing. As he hits a power- 
ful blow,, I deduced that this rising on the toes 
and then coming down with the downward 
swing, had a good deal to do with the results 
achieved, so I experimented a little on that 
line. The experiment with me was not a suc- 
cess. The secret of Mr. Anderson's success 
and my failure, of course, is that he rises on 
his toes and descends all in perfect rhythm 

73 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

with his stroke, and I do not. The upward 
and downward movement of the body in my 
case throws me off my timing of the shot. It 
did not take me long to discover that, whatever 
advantage Mr. Anderson might derive from 
that peculiarity, it would not do at all for me. 

It is a great pleasure for me to watch a 
player like Charles E. ("Chick'') Evans, Jr., 
of Chicago, a former interscholastic champion, 
as well as a former National Open titleholder 
and amateur champion. His style is so easy 
and graceful, that to watch him is to get the 
impression that golf is an easy game to master. 
Watching him, and a number of others I might 
name, shows in a striking way the difference 
between the good player and the bad. One 
goes about his task laboriously, in a sort of 
I-pray-I-hit-it attitude; the other steps up to 
the ball with a confidence born of success, as 
if to hit the ball in the middle were just a per- 
functory matter, after all. Confidence is half 
the battle,, anyway, though over-confidence is 
the worst enemy a golfer ever had. Doubtless 
that is true of most games. 

The late Frederick Herreshoff, runner-up to 
H. H. Hilton for the national amateur cham- 

74 



VALUE OF IMITATION 

pionship in 191 1, is another golfer whom I 
liked to see in action, particularly when he was 
having one of his good days with wooden clubs. 
Edward Ray, I know, is rated as a wonderful 
driver,, and I have seen him hit some long 
ones; I have seen others who are renowned 
for the long hitting, but I have yet to see 
another wooden shot which, to my mind, quite 
comes up to one that I saw Mr. Herreshoff 
make at The Country Club, Brookline, Massa- 
chusetts, in 'the National Amateur champion- 
ship tournament of 19 10. The ninth hole, as 
then played, I think was about 500 yards in 
length. Mr. Herreshoff made so long a drive 
that he used a jigger for his second shot, despite 
the fact that the putting-green is on an eleva- 
tion considerably above the point from which he 
played his second shot. The jigger, I will ex- 
plain for those who do not know its uses, is 
a club for shots a little too long for the mashie, 
and, at the same time, imparting a little loft 
to the ball. In the hands of a golfer like Mr. 
Herreshoff, I suppose it is good, ordinarily, 
for 165 yards. The disappointing thing in this 
instance was that, after his remarkable drive, 
Mr. Herreshoff was a wee bit off the line with 

75 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

his second shot, and not quite far enough, so 
that his ball went into a trap to the right of, 
and just below, the green. 

Mr. Herreshoff is one of those players who 
get their wrists into shots in a most effective 
manner. 

For my own part, I never have tried to 
achieve distinction as a long hitter. To be suc- 
cessful in open competition, a golfer necessarily 
must be able to hold his own fairly well in the 
matter of distance; but I have found it possible 
to do this to a reasonable degree by trying to 
cultivate a smooth stroke and timing it well. 
Being of good height, almost six feet, and hav- 
ing a moderately full swing, my club gets a 
good sweep in its course toward the ball, so that 
the point I strive for is to have the club head 
moving at its maximum of speed at the moment 
of impact with the ball. I know I could get 
greater distance than I do ordinarily, for now 
and then I do try to hit as hard and as far as I 
can^ with additional yards resulting. These 
efforts, however, are made when there is noth- 
ing at stake, and are merely a bit of experiment- 
ing. To make such extra efforts the rule, 
rather than the exception, would be the old 

76 



VALUE OF IMITATION 

story of sacrificing accuracy for distance. The 
minute a golfer begins doing that in competi- 
tion he is lost,, or such is my belief. 

The 19 10 Amateur Championship at The 
Country Club, Brookline, where I saw Mr. 
Herreshoff make the drive above mentioned, 
was the first national event I ever entered, my 
age at the time being seventeen years. I did 
not qualify, but my failure did not make me 
feel very badly, considering all the circum- 
stances. My total of 169 in the qualifying 
rounds was only one stroke worse than the top 
qualifying figure; and among those who, like 
myself, failed to get in the match play were 
such noted golfers as Robert A. Gardner, then 
the national amateur champion, and H. Chand- 
ler Egan, a former champion. 

Furthermore, I played under circumstances 
that were a handicap in themselves. The cham- 
pionship field was inordinately large, and I was 
among the late starters for the first round, get- 
ting away from the first tee at 2 144 o'clock in 
the afternoon. This would have been ample 
time to get around before dark, had it not been 
for an extraordinary congestion at the third 
tee. Some one of the earlier starters was ex- 

17 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

ceedingly slow, not to mention the time taken 
to search for a ball, and other little things that 
helped to cause delay and hold the players back. 
When my partner and I arrived at the third tee, 
there were ten pairs then waiting for an op- 
portunity to play that hole, and there was noth- 
ing to do but wait. An hour and ten minutes 
of waiting at one tee in a championship is not 
conducive to best efforts ; at any rate, it was not 
in my case. 

While waiting at this tee, I remember hav- 
ing watched W. C. Chick take eight for the 
sixth hole, and, while mentally sympathizing 
with him,, I did not dream that I would get a 
similar figure for my own card, when I finally 
did play the third hole, for I had started most 
satisfactorily with four for the first hole, and 
the same figure for the second. When it came 
my turn to drive from, the third tee, I drove into 
a trap, lost a stroke getting out, put my third in 
the woods, was back on the fair green in four, 
on the green in five, and then took three putts 
for an eight. But from that point, I was forty- 
four strokes for the first nine holes. By this 
time, the afternoon was pretty well gone, and 
my partner and I had to stop playing at the 

78 



VALUE OF IMITATION 

fourteenth, because of darkness. As my card 
showed even fours for the first five holes of the 
inward half, I was beginning to feel better, and 
had I been able to complete the round that day, 
I think I might have been around in seventy- 
nine or eighty. 

Along with several other pairs who were 
caught in the same dilemma, I had to go out the 
following morning to play the remaining four 
holes, and the best I could get for them was a 
total of nineteen strokes, whereas I would do 
those same holes ordinarily in sixteen strokes, 
at most. My score of eighty- three for the first 
round was not bad, however, and a similar 
round the second day would have put me in the 
match play. 

But I had made one serious mistake, as I 
learned in the course of the second round. My 
supposition had been that., after playing the last 
four holes of the first round on the morning of 
the second day, I would have ample time to go 
home to breakfast and then return for the sec- 
ond round, my home being in close proximity 
to the grounds. What actually happened was 
that, after completing the four holes of the 
first round, I was told to report immediately at 

79 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

the first tee for my second round, in which I 
was to have the pleasure of being partnered 
with the then president of the United States 
Golf Association, Robert C. Watson. For the 
first nine holes I had reason to feel satisfied, do- 
ing them in forty-one strokes, with every pros- 
pect of doing even better in the scoring for the 
last nine, which are less difficult. But by this 
time the pangs of hunger had taken a firm hold, 
and I could feel myself weakening physically, 
which was the result both of my failure to get 
breakfast, and the strain of a week of hard 
practising. The consequence was that I made 
a poor finish, took forty-five for the last nine, 
eighty-six for the round, and had one hundred 
and sixty-nine for my thirty-six-hole total, or 
just out of the match-play running. The moral 
is, to be properly prepared for competition. 

About that "week of hard practising" I 
would like to add a Httle. My experiences of 
practising for the championship of 1910 taught 
me a good lesson, which is, that practising may 
easily be overdone. My idea of practising for 
that event was to get in at least thirty-six holes 
a day for the week prior to the championship. 
This was based partly on the idea that, with so 

80 




Photo by Pietzcker, St. Louis 

CHICK EVANS AND FRANCIS OUIMET 



VALUE OF IMITATION 

much play,, the game could be brought to such a 
point of mechanical precision that it would be 
second nature to hit the ball properly. The 
thought of "going stale'' from so much play 
never occurred to me. ^ Probably one reason 
was that I never had had a feeling of physical 
staleness in any sport up to that time. I always 
had been keen for golf, from the time of becom- 
ing interested in the game, and could not imag- 
ine a state of feeling that would mean even the 
slightest repugnance for play. 

This is,, perhaps, an error natural to youth 
and inexperience. It was not for me to know 
that a growing youth of seventeen years is not 
likely to have such a robust constitution that he 
can stand thirty-six holes of golf a day for a 
week, not to mention fairly steady play for 
weeks in advance of that, and still be on edge 
for a championship tournament. 

It was not only on the Saturday previous 
to the championship (which began Monday) 
that I noticed this feeling of staleness. It did 
not come on all at once, by any means, and I did 
not realize what was the trouble, for on the day 
that I first noticed that I was not so keen for 
play as usual, I made a particularly good score. 

8i 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

That day I was playing in company with H. H. 
Wilder, R. R. Freeman, and W. R. Tuckerman. 
This round was more or less of a tryout for 
places on the Massachusetts State team and I 
was fortunate enough to get in the best round, 
a seventy-six. Incidentally, I might add that 
this performance did not land me the coveted 
place on the State team, for Mr. Tuckerman 
reached the semi-finals of the championship 
the succeeding week, which gave him prece- 
dence. That year I did play one match for the 
State team, however. It was in the match 
against Rhode Island, when the Massachusetts 
team found itself one man shy on the day set 
for play, which also was at The Country Club. 
Somebody discovered that I was in the vicinity, 
looked me up, and I played with a set of bor- 
rowed clubs., and also won my match. 

To revert to the physical strain of too much 
practice, I found that on Saturday of the prac- 
tice week my hands were sore, and that I was 
playing with unwonted effort, though not get- 
ting any better results that when hitting the 
ball with normal ease. It was my first lesson in 
the knowledge that when the game becomes a 

82 



VALUE OF IMITATION 

task, rather than a pleasure, something is 
wrong physically. 

My advice to any golfer preparing for a 
championship is,, therefore, not to overdo the 
practice end. To my mind, the wise thing is to 
play thirty-six holes a day for perhaps two days 
a week in advance of the championship. Then 
spend a morning in practising shots with the 
irons, the mashie, and putting, followed by a 
round of the course in the afternoon. This 
might be done for two or three days, with spe- 
cial attention given to the club which perhaps 
is not getting satisfactory results. One round 
of golf,, without special exertion, the day before 
the tournament, after such a program, ought to 
put the player in good shape for the real com- 
petition. As for the superstition of some golf- 
ers that a particularly fine round in practice 
means so much less chance of duplicating it in 
tournament play, I hold a different view, which 
is, that an especially good round gives an in- 
spiration to equal it when the real test comes. 
'I always feel after such a round that, if I can do 
it once, there is no reason why I cannot again. 

Elimination from the championship, in the 
qualifying round, had its compensations. It 

83 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

gave me the opportunity to watch the cham- 
pionship play for the remainder of the week, 
to see in action those golfers of whom I had 
heard so much. That in itself was a treat. 
Some of the matches, moreover,, gave me some 
new ideas about golf as played in competition 
by men in the foremost ranks. For one thing, it 
was rather startling, if such a word can apply, 
to see a golfer like Mr. Herreshoff literally 
"swamped" in his match with Mr. Evans. Mr. 
Herreshoff had made the lowest score of the 
entire field in the qualifying round, yet here 
was the same man unable to put up anything 
but the most feeble opposition to the young 
Chicago golfer. Such a match only goes to 
show that the best of golfers occasionally have 
their bad days^ days on which they find it seem- 
ingly impossible to play satisfactorily. That is a 
good thing to bear in mind, — no match is lost 
before it is played. When a golfer possessed of 
such ability as had Mr. Herreshoff can be de- 
feated eleven up and nine to play, it simply 
shows that golf is a game of uncertainties, after 
all; that, in fact, is one of its great charms. 

In that same championship, the uncertainties 
6i the game were shown in another match, and 

84 



VALUE OF IMITATION 

again Mr. Evans was one of the factors, though 
this time on the losing side. He had been play- 
ing in form which made him a distinctive fa- 
vorite for the title, and, in the semi-final round, 
he came to the sixteenth hole 2 up on W. C. 
Fownes., Jr., of Pittsburgh. The sixteenth is a 
short hole, just a mashie pitch. Mr. Evans 
reached the edge of the green with his tee shot, 
whereas Mr. Fownes made a poor effort, and 
put his ball in a sand-trap. 

The match appeared to be over, then and 
there. But a match in golf never is over until 
One player has a lead of more holes than there 
are holes to play, a fact which was demon- 
strated anew in this match. Mr. Fownes played 
out of the trap, and holed a long putt for a 
three, while Mr. Evans, using his mid-iron in- 
stead of his putter from the edge of the green, 
was well past the hole on his second shot, and 
failed to get the putt coming back. Hence, in- 
stead of winning the hole and the match, as he 
seemed bound to do he lost the hole. Then, as 
so often happens when a man apparently has a 
match absolutely in hand and loses an opening 
to clinch it, Mr. Evans lost the seventeenth, 
likewise the home hole, and, with the loss of the 

85 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

eighteenth, he also lost the match. Instead of 
winning the match and the championship, as 
nearly everybody figured he would, he only got 
to the semi-finals. It is true that Mr. Fownes 
made a wonderful recovery at the sixteenth, to 
get his three; he played a remarkable shot at 
the seventeenth, too ; but a man is apt to do that 
after recovering from an almost hopeless situa- 
tion. 

It was in that championship that I was aston- 
ished to see such a great golfer as Mr. Evans 
using }iis mid-iron instead of his putter most of 
the time on the greens. He was then following 
the same practice that was true of his play in 
the middle west, notwithstanding that the put- 
ter is a much superior club for greens such as 
are found at The Country Club. He could not 
be expected, of course, to come east and learn 
to get the best results from the putter in such 
a short time as he had for practice. 

To see him use the mid-iron on the greens, 
and then practically lose his semi-final round 
match, and possibly the title, because he could 
not lay a mid-iron approach-putt dead at the 
sixteenth, helped me to form one resolution for 
which I since have been thankful. That was to 

86 



VALUE OF IMITATION 

use my putter from any point on the green, pro- 
vided there was no special reason for doing 
otherwise. Of course,, there are circumstances 
when the mid-iron is better for an approach- 
putt than the putter, as, for example, when 
there is a little piece of dirt on or in front of the 
ball, casual water, or uneven surface to go over. 
But under normal conditions,, nowadays, I 
would rather use my putter and take three 
putts, than take a mid-iron or another club. By 
adhering to that policy, I think I have gained 
more confidence in my putting, and confidence 
is a wonderful asset in this branch of the game. 
Watching the good players in that champion- 
ship gave me one distinct ambition, which was 
to try to steady my game down to a point where^ 
I would not play four holes well, say, and then 
have two or three poor ones before getting an- 
other three- or four-hole streak of satisfactory 
play. The steadily good game is better than the 
combination of brilliant and erratic. It is some- 
thing like the hare and the tortoise. 



87 



CHAPTER VII 



PLAY YOUR OWN GAME 



IF there is one point in golf that young play- 
ers should know above all others, it is to 
play their own game. This may sound strange, 
inasmuch as nearly every beginner starts his 
golf career either by taking lessons from the 
professional or by imitating the style of play of 
older devotees of the links; yet I think those 
who start playing when quite young will catch 
my point as soon as I give them one illustration 
of what I mean; take the mashie, for instance, 
in playing this shot, virtually all teachers of 
golf follow the same principle of play. It is a 
club we all try to use in much the same style. 
In so far as the style or form of executing a 
mashie shot is concerned, the differences are 
minor and have but little influence on the result. 
Btit when it comes to getting distance with the 
mashie and, at the same time, executing the 
shot with a degree of accuracy, we reach the 

88 



PLAY YOUR OWN GAME 

point where we have to play our own game to 
get the best results. 

I think everybody will agree with me that no 
two boys or girls are built alike. Take two 
boys of the same age, and one is usually 
stronger than the other. If they play their 
mashie shots in the same style, the stronger boy 
should be able to reach a greater distance in 
making the shot. Now when these two boys are 
playing a golf match, it is apparent that if the 
stronger of the two can reach a distance of one 
hundred yards with his mashie, the other 
should not imitate him in using the same club 
for the same distance. That is what I mean 
by playing your own game. The golfer, to be 
successful, must first know just what he can 
and cannot do with each club in his bag. He 
should not try to follow the example of his 
opponent, no matter how brilliant that op- 
ponent may be. 

I am quite sure that my good friend Jerome 
D. Travers, who has won so many amateur and 
open titles in this country, would never have 
been such a wonderful golfer had he attempted 
to imitate the play of many of his opponents 
during the big matches he so frequently won. 

89 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

Time and again Travers would face players 
who obtained splendid distances from the tee 
with the wood; but when he could not get his 
wood going well, he never fell into the trap of 
trying to match them stroke for stroke, even 
though their drives were splendid ones. 

On the other hand, Travers would play the 
game as he knew he could play it. In fact, he 
was always most particular on this point, and at 
times his judgment, which finally proved best, 
was freely criticized by the gallery. He simply 
knew what he could do with each club in his 
bag. He was never concerned with what other 
stars could do with such and such a club. That 
was the dominating factor in his success, just 
as it is the dominating factor in the ranking of 
any fine golfer. 

As one golfs about here and there on various 
links and with various players, he is continually 
struck with the fact that so many capable play- 
ers fall into the error of imitation. Nothing is 
more fatal to one's game. Not long ago I 
played with such a man, one who was able to 
play a splendid match, but who usually came a 
cropper, all because he too closely followed the 
plan of play of his opponent. He would watch 

90 



PLAY YOUR OWN GAME 

me closely, and if I found what to me was a fa- 
vorite shot with a mashie or iron, he would 
either use the same club for the identical shot 
or first ask me which one I was going to use. 
Now in this case I happened to be going very 
well with my iron, — better than usual, in fact, 
— so I frequently called upon it when other 
clubs might have served the purpose. I was 
particularly lucky with my iron that day, get- 
ting splendid results around 170-odd yards. 
My friend was, as I happened to notice, quite 
good with his wood for this distance, as he was 
never a man for great distances. But instead 
of using his brassie for distances of that kind 
after I had reached them with my iron, he 
would invariably call for the same club as I had 
used and usually came a cropper as a result. I 
am quite sure that had I followed suit when he 
had the honor or was first to play when our lies 
were almost alike, I should have had many more 
troubles than I did. 

The fault of imitation is readily accounted 
for. It is quite natural for all of us to imitate 
the style of champions. That is all fitting and 
proper. By such means we learn much of value. 
But to this there is a limit quite clearly under- 

91 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

stood. No boy, for example, who has watched 
Dave Herron drive should attempt to get simi- 
lar distances. It is not possible for him. This 
matter of distances is the point wherein imita- 
tion ceases. They are always deceptive, and on 
golf-links few can gage them with any degree 
of accuracy. Some holes we come to in our 
journeys about strange links may seem to us 
fully six hundred yards in length, though they 
are only two shotters. Many things in nature 
contribute to our difficulties in reckoning the 
yardage of a hole or of a particular shot. We 
are often at a loss to know what club to use to 
reach home. There is a school of golfers who 
by dint of much experience and practice are 
able to reckon the distance to the hole with un- 
canny accuracy. They take just pride in this 
ability, and I always doff my hat to them. But 
few of us have this keen sense of sight; few of 
us can overcome the many handicaps of atmos- 
phere and landscape effects to be able to do this. 
And when we are in doubt about a shot of such 
a nature, we fall back upon our opponent to 
help us out, either asking his advice or watch- 
ing him to see what club he uses. Consequently, 
when this opponent uses a certain club to 

92 



PLAY YOUR OWN GAME 

get home, we grasp the same one much as a 
drowning man is supposed to seize a straw. 

I take it that this is not the way to play golf. 
One who follows such a method is not relying 
upon his own judgment and game. He is play- 
ing by imitation and is sure to meet with diffi- 
culties in the long run. He is certainly not 
self-dependent; and one who cannot depend 
upon his own judgment in any game or any 
work is never going to get very far in this 
world. It is because we do not give the re- 
quired thought to the game that we fall into 
this fatal habit of imitation. Fortunately, there 
is a simple formula which enables the golfer 
to rely upon his own judgment. 

Virtually every golf-course in the world sup- 
plies score-cards for those who play over it. 
On all of these cards the distances of every hole 
IS set down in yards. In addition, these dis- 
tances are usually marked on the sand-box at 
every tee. It is almost impossible to play a 
round on any course without having the yard- 
age of every hole forced upon your mind. Now 
the first rule in playing your own game is to 
note the yardage of every hole. Once you have 
done that on a strange course, there is little 

93 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

difficulty about playing your game according to 
the way you get your best results, if you hap- 
pen to know what your own game is. 

Every golf player should do enough practis- 
ing with all his clubs to know about what dis- 
tances he can reach with them in an average 
round. In time, such practice informs you with 
what clubs you can best play certain shots and 
get certain distances with fair luck. That your 
driver, your brassie, your iron, your mashie, 
and so on down the whole gamut of clubs, is in 
each case good for a certain shot or a certain 
distance should be as much a part of your game 
as your timing and style of swing; if you do 
not know this, you are bound to rely too much 
upon imitation. That is a point about golf we 
too frequently overlook, probably because such 
knowledge is only obtained by dint of much 
hard practice. Still, the result is worth the ef- 
fort every time if one wishes to enjoy the keen- 
est satisfaction of the sport. 

I long ago made it a point to carry in my 
head the length of all my home-club holes as 
well as others that I frequently played. And 
I did this for the one purpose of comparison. 
Golfers are so frequently muddled on strange 

94 



PLAY YOUR OWN GAME 

courses, so frequently misjudging distances, — 
and my. own experience was the same in this 
particular,, — that one should work out a plan to 
eliminate this hazard. My scheme was to re- 
member the various holes at home so that, when 
I came to any tee of a strange course and 
learned the distance to the green, I could im- 
mediately compare it to a hole I was familiar 
with. Thus I felt myself at home. Here was 
no new problem to solve. Let us say a new hole 
to be played measures 485 yards. Back on the 
home course, there is one that measures 475 
yards. They are approximately the same 
length. Now I know how I can best play the 
hole of this distance on the home course. So it 
stands to reason that the same kind of play will 
get me over the fairway I face and down into 
the cup in fewer strokes than by following any 
hap-hazard system or in watching my opponent 
to see what clubs he is using. 

Knowing the distance one gets with his 
clubs, one is able to estimate the .distance of 
each successive shot in this manner. Say a hole 
is 270 yards long and you usually drive about 
200 yards with your wood. Now if you get off 
that tee in something like average form, it looks 

95 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

to me as though your approach was a seventy- 
yard one,, which is fairly accurate knowledge of 
the situation confronting you, far better to 
reckon on than to trust to your sight, or to esti- 
mate by guess-work, or to watch to see what 
your opponent will select in the way of a club 
to tip you off. Thus, if one knows with what 
club he can best pitch seventy yards, he will not 
go far from the correct method of reaching 
such a green. 

There are many golfers who laugh at such a 
scheme for play. They think that it reduces 
the game to a machine-like process,, which they 
argue is not good sport. But I am of the belief 
that this is a proper and just and sportsmanlike 
course to pursue. If it were not, it seems cer- 
tain that the aids we get from score-cards and 
sand-boxes in giving us the exact distances of 
each hole would never have entered into the 
game in the first place. Some fellows refer to 
it as yardstick golf. But one is never going far 
from right in playing in this way, so there is 
really a great deal to be said in its favor. 

Youthful players have carefully to watch one 
point about their play as each successive season 
adds strength and skill to their game; they 

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PLAY YOUR OWN GAME 

must note the increased distances they reach 
with their clubs as they grow older. The boy of 
twelve who gets 120 yards off the tee is likely 
to add some twenty yards or more in the next 
two years. And his entire game will increase 
in like proportion. That is a point he can easily 
note either by giving time to practise or by not- 
ing the greater ease with which he reaches 
greens. 

Perhaps the best reason for studying one's 
game so carefully as to avoid imitating others, 
or depending upon them, is the game itself. 
There are two ways of playing competitive 
golf. One, long discarded by the better golfers, 
is to try to out-play each stroke of your oppon- 
ent. The other is to forget all about your op- 
ponent and strive for par, playing each hole 
as best you can, concentrating every effort upon 
each shot that falls to your lot. Once the golf- 
er can reduce his score to par, he is not going 
to lose many matches. If he does,, he should 
take his upsets most graciously, for one should 
never feel anything but satisfied when his op- 
ponent defeats him by playing under par. 

An illustration of this very thing was the 
splendid play of Robert A. Gardner in the 

97 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

British Amateur in 1920. Gardner reached 
the finals, carried Tolley to an extra-hole match, 
and played the extra hole in par; Tolley de- 
feated him on this hole with a ''birdie/' Gard- 
ner was the first to congratulate his opponent. 
He had played a remarkable game and was not 
at all chagrined to lose to an opponent who 
could play a hole under par. As a result, he 
was hailed all over England as both a great 
golfer and a splendid sportsman. 

There is a lot in knowing how to take a de- 
feat. And it is a lesson every golfer should 
know by heart, for all of them tumble many 
times in a season. The game is fascinating to 
a great extent because of its uncertainty. Few 
golfers ever succeed themselves as champions, 
few ever rise to unbeatable heights. In this, 
golf differs radically from nearly every other 
sport. Consistency in golf is almost unknown. 

At the same time we all strive for consist- 
ency, and, by dint of practice and study and the 
exchange of ideas we have worked out, we give 
each other a lift. That is one of the fine char- 
acteristics of golf. No one tries to conceal any 
point he may have picked up in his career. I 
know, in my first years of competitive golf, that 

98 



PLAY YOUR OWN GAME 

much of i?iy good fortune was due to the advice 
and tips of older and wiser heads. They were 
always glad and willing to lend a helping hand 
or to chide me if I made mistakes. Once I was 
playing a foursome at Garden City, and one of 
the players was none other than Walter J. 
Travis, the only American who ever won the 
British Amateur title. I was playing rather 
poorly and out for a jolly time of it. Coming 
to one of the tees,, I suggested that we drive 
off together. "Play the game," was the re- 
mark of Mr. Travis, to my proposition. I shall 
always be indebted to him for thus informing 
me that the keenest satisfaction one can gain 
from golf is to concentrate upon it. 

The biggest event of my golf days was the 
one I faced in 19 13, when as a boy, I had tied 
Vardon and Ray, the English professionals, in 
the United States Open, at y2 holes of medal 
play. The following day we played off this tie. 
I had played the course several times in fine 
figures and realized all that. But as the time 
for the start began, my case seemed hopeless 
to me. Then, as I was about to tee up, little 
Johnny McDermott,, the greatest professional 
player we ever developed in America, came to 

99 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

me and said, "Play your own game, Francis." 
Suddenly it came to me that here was the secret 
of golf. So I set forth with new resolve. My 
mind was given entirely to my own game. I 
forgot about Vardon and Ray, and set to work 
to play the best golf of which I was capable. 
And the best part of it all is, that I succeeded in 
doing so. I owe a lot to the advice of these for- 
mer champions,, and I hope that in this article 
I have passed on something of the advice that 
Johnny McDermott gave to me on that day 
away back in 191 3, for that, in a few words, 
sums up the innermost secrets of this most fas- 
cinating game. 



100 



CHAPTER VIII 

VALUE OF CONCENTRATION 

ONE thing at a time, and that done well," is 
a very good rule in golf, as in many other 
lines of either work or play. I speak of this be- 
cause golf is a game in which the relationship 
between player^ is a bit different than in any 
other game that comes to my mind. It is a 
game which, to reap the best results, demands 
great concentration, and yet a game which, at 
times, is played wonderfully well by those who 
seem to be paying scant attention to the task in 
hand. The game one moment brings men to- 
gether and next sends them apart,, according to 
the direction in which they happen to hit the 
ball ; two men can start from the same tee, be 
two hundred or more yards apart after their 
drives, and both be on the same green after 
playing their second shots. It is a game which 
invites sociability, and yet does not either de- 
mand or require it. One man can go out and 

lOI 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

play all by himself and thoroughly enjoy his 
game, or two men can go out, play a round to- 
gether, neither speak a word between the first 
tee and the last green, yet both go into the club- 
house and declare they had seldom or never 
spent a more enjoyable time. 

So when I talk about concentration, I do not 
wish to be misunderstood. Different people like 
to do things in different ways, and golfers dif- 
fer the same as other people. One golfer feels 
that he cannot properly enjoy a round without 
being able to converse with his partner or his 
opponent, while the other prefers to give all his 
attention to the play, though he may be a very 
prince of good fellows and most sociably in- 
clined the moment the round is done. It is a 
good thing, therefore, for one golfer playing a 
round with another not to try to make it a so- 
ciable match, in the ordinary sense of the term, 
until he knows that such sociability is welcome. 

As I stated before, some golfers seem to be 
able to play at the top of their game even 
though they carry on a conversation all the 
way around, or allow their attention to be 
otherwise diverted from the task of hitting the 
ball right. They are to be envied. At the 

102 



VALUE OF CONCENTRATION 

same time,, I have my doubts if there is one 
golfer iti a thousand who can do those things 
yet rise to the top in the game, competitively 
speaking. With some golfers it seems to be 
almost second nature to be able to play well 
under any and all circumstances, but even of 
those fortunate players, some might possibly 
get further than they do at the game if, when 
it comes to important matches, they would 
buckle down to their own play and erase 
everything else from their minds. I would be 
the last person in the world to advise a sort 
of mummified attitude at all times on the links, 
for the sociable side of the game has a strong 
appeal to me. Often I have been criticized 
for not paying more attention to my game and 
less to other things. But the more thought I 
give to the subject, the more am I convinced 
that, in a match w^hich I particularly desire to 
win, there is no surer way of getting the de- 
sired results than in paying attention to 
nothing else while the match is in progress. 
Every school-boy knows that it is almost im- 
possible for him, to master a lesson if he 
is allowing himself to think of half a dozen 
different things while he is trying to study. A 

103 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

member of a school nine or football eleven 
knows how hard it is to try to study on the 
night before an important game or match. Ex- 
actly the same thing is true of golf, for "no 
man can serve two masters" and serve each 
equally well. 

These views, I think,, are borne out by the 
records of different golfers who have achieved 
the highest honors. Walter J. Travis, who 
three times has been United States Amateur 
Champion, and who once won the British ama- 
teur title, which practically made him World's 
Amateur Champion, is a veritable sphinx dur- 
ing the course of a tournament round. Doubt- 
less there are a great many followers of the 
game who think he is the same on all occasions, 
because they have only seen him during these 
matches. I can assure them they are wrong. I 
mention Mr. Travis here because of an incident 
that happened one time at the Essex County 
Club, Manchester, Massachusetts, where he 
was playing in an invitation tournament. 
Along about the fourteenth hole, Mr. Travis 
was approached by a golfer who propounded a 
question which, as I remember, was to settle an 
argument that had come up about some point 

104 



VALUE OF CONCENTRATION 

of play. Mr. Travis looked up and said: "I 
am playing golf/' In other words, he wished 
to give his entire attention to the match. His 
record tells its own story of what concentration 
has meant to him in the line of success. From 
all I have seen of Jerome D. Travers, who has 
four times won the amateur championship of 
the United States, he is another who never, if 
he can help it,, allows any outside influence to 
affect his play during an important match. 

At the national open championship in 1913 
at The Country Club, Brookline, Wilfrid Reid, 
of England, made a grand showing in the pre- 
liminary rounds and during the first two rounds 
of the championship proper. During the sec- 
ond round of the championship proper, he was 
approached by a newspaper man who desired 
to know how he was getting along to that point. 
*Tlease don't bother me," was the English 
professional's rejoinder. That was all he said 
at the time, though after the round he ex- 
plained that he had not intended to be curt, only 
that he never liked to be interrupted during the 
course of a championship round. I might add 
that after his grand play the first day, Reid 
went all to pieces on the second, due to a little 

los 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

trouble he had the night before which preyed 
upon his mind in the last two rounds of the 
championship. 

Harry Vardon, I can imagine, might become 
so concentrated in his play that he would not 
even hear a question put to him during a cham- 
pionship round. For myself, I know I have 
lost more than one match for no other reason 
than that I have not set about my task earnestly 
enough. It is all right to say to yourself that 
you will get right down to business toward the 
end of a match, but, more often than otherwise, 
it cannot be done. 

In a previous chapter, I advised against try- 
ing to drive equally far with a golfer who nor- 
mally gets a longer ball than you do. Along 
the same line, I again emphasize the point that 
the quicker a golfer can develop a state of mind 
which will enable him to witness a fine shot on 
the part of his opponent without its having any 
adverse effect upon his own play, the more suc- 
cessful will he be. The logic of the argument 
is apparent. The problem is, how to develop 
that state of mind. It is natural to feel, after 
seeing your opponent lay an approach dead, 
that there is small chance of doing the same, 

io6 



VALUE OF CONCENTRATION 

and the tendency is to go at the shot half-heart- 
edly, or at least without that confidence which 
means so much in a match. The better way of 
looking at this situation is: "My opponent is 
dead to the hole ; well and good. I have every- 
thing to gain and nothing to lose on this shot, 
for if I don't get a good one, he wins the hole 
anyway, while if I do, I have a chance to halve, 
and it won't do my opponent any good to only 
halve a hole which he already thinks is v/on." 
It is a peculiar fact, and part of the psychol- 
ogy of golf, that many times when one player 
makes a poor shot,, — drives out of bounds or 
something of the sort, — his opponent steps up 
and does the same thing. Especially is this 
true of golfers not in the first rank, and, I 
might say, it also is to be seen with unexplain- 
able frequency among the leading golfers. 
Possibly it is because the second player becomes 
a bit careless, or it may be because he tries to 
be too careful. At any rate, it does happen 
often. It would seem natural that the same 
thing might happen with the good shots, and 
sometimes it does, but not with anything like 
the same frequency. I presume the reason for 
this is that the rank and file of golfers are more 

107 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

prone to make errors, under stress,, than they 
are to do something unusually good. 

The man, above all others, whom I admire 
for his wonderful faculty of rising to the oc- 
casion by going his opponent one better, usually 
at a critical stage, is Jerome D. Travers. It 
might appear that I am trying to find an excuse 
for my defeat by him in the national amateur 
championship at Garden City, in 19 13, if I 
mention only one shot which he played on that 
occasion, and which had a decided bearing on 
the outcome. I will say, therefore, that Mr. 
Travers has a long-established reputation for 
doing something extraordinary at what may be 
termed the psychological moment, and what he 
did against me at Garden City is only in line 
with similar shots that he has pulled off in other 
matches. He is one of that type of golfers who 
always seems to have a little in reserve. There 
are times when he plays inferior golf, but he 
usually plays just enough better than his oppo- 
nent to win. The shot that I have particularly 
in mind is one that he played at the eighth hole 
in the second round of our match. My second 
shot, played from a point about 150 yards from 
the greeUj came to rest about eight feet from 

108 



VALUE OF CONCENTRATION 

the hole. Mr. Travers, with possibly three or 
four yards less to play on his second, deliber- 
ated a trifle longer than usual, and then not 
only put his ball inside mine., but only three or 
four feet from the hole. I had viewed my own 
shot with intense satisfaction, and already was 
"counting my chickens" for a 3, to win the hole. 
What happened was that he made it in 3, and 
I took 4. It may be that had I secured the 3 
and he a 4, he still would have won the match ; 
but., at the same time, the way the thing turned 
out certainly did not improve my chances. 
Hence., I would explain that it is all right to let 
a good shot influence you when it acts as a 
spur to doing even better, as it seems to with 
Mr. Travers. 

Another illustration of the point that fre- 
quen^Jy a tough situation acts as a spur to bril- 
liant effort was a performance by C. E. Evans, 
Jr., in the qualifying round of the national ama- 
teur championship at the Chicago Golf -Club 
in 191 2. H. H. Hilton,, a former British ama- 
teur champion and at that time holder of the 
American amateur title had completed his two 
rounds and led the field in strokes, with Mr. 
Evans needing a 4 at the home hole to tie for 

109 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

the lead. Mr. Evans was just enough off the 
line with his drive to get a lie which made it im- 
possible for him to play straight for the green. 
After studying the situation, Mr. Evans de- 
cided there was just one possibility of getting 
his 4, which was to play his second shot de- 
liberately off the line, almost at right angles to 
it to reach an open spot known as the polo field, 
then approach from that open spot, and take a 
chance of getting near enough to go down with 
one putt. A fine shot landed him, in the afore- 
said polo field, which was upward of lOO yards 
off the course proper, and left him a long way 
from the green. Moreover, he found himself 
stymied by a tree. With wonderful courage 
and skill, he played his approach over the tree, 
and landed the ball on the green, though still 
twenty-five feet from the hole. The best thing 
about the story is that he holed the putt, which 
put him in a tie with the Englishman, and it 
was a fitting climax when he later defeated Mr. 
Hilton in the play-off for the gold medal. 

This incident only goes to prove that no sit- 
uation is absolutely hopeless in a round of golf, 
a fact behind which there is abundance of 
proof. Every follower of the game knows,, for 

no 



VALUE OF CONCENTRATION 

example, that holes are made in one stroke an 
astonishing number of times. I am one of the 
unlucky ones who has not felt the thrill of such 
a performance. The best thing about such mat- 
ters as holing a tee shot or a long approach is 
that it is done by poor players and good players 
alike. The golf ball is absolutely neutral in its 
likes and dislikes. Of course, I must admit 
that the farther a man can hit the ball, the more 
chance he has of doing something extraordi- 
nary in this line, such as when John G. Ander- 
son holed his tee shot at the old sixteenth of 
the Brae-Burn Country Club, West Newton, 
Massachusetts, the distance being 328 yards. 
The finish was downhill, but it took a long drive 
to get the roll. Again, there was the hole-in-one 
made by Mr. Allis in the summer of 19 13 at 
Homewood, the distance being 306 yards. If 
the golfer would only bear such things as these 
in mind when the outlook is least promising in 
a match,, perhaps the spirit of optimism would 
carry him through to a successful finish. When 
the outlook is darkest is the time when Fate 
may be conspiring to bring about the unex- 
pected. I had a taste of that in the Massa- 
chusetts amateur championship of 19 13, played 

III 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

at the Wollaston Golf -Club, Montclair, Massa- 
chusetts. In the second round, my opponent 
was Ray R. Gorton. We halved the first eight 
holes, after which Mr. Gorton won the ninth, 
eleventh, and twelfth. I had to get past a half- 
stymie to hole the putt for a half at the thir- 
teenth ; at the fourteenth, he was on the green 
in two shots, while in a like number I was above 
the green, on an embankment,, and had to pitch 
down with my niblick and go down in one putt, 
for a half, which left me 3 down, with 4 
to play. The fifteenth I won with a 3, and the* 
sixteenth with a 2, as here I needed only one 
putt. We halved the seventeenth, and at the 
home hole it looked to be all over when Mr. 
Gorton had only to hole a putt of less than a 
yard to halve the hole and win the match. 
There are times when a short putt holed is 
worth far more than the longest drive ever 
recorded, and this was one of them. Mr. Gor- 
ton missed his putt, the match was squared, 
and I won the first extra. After that I went 
through and won the championship. It is by 
such things that championships are won and 
lost. Mr. Evans's inability to putt well at Gar- 
den City against Mr. Anderson, in the 19 13 

112 



VALUE OF CONCENTRATION 

amateur championship,, was the chief factor in 
his defeat. These short putts sometimes are 
missed by carelessness. The moral is obvious. 
While carelessness is a bad feature for any 
golfer to allow to creep into his game, it must 
not be confused with unnecessarily prolonged 
deliberation over shots. Too much time in 
studying shots before playing them is, to my 
mind, worse than not enough. In other words, 
neither procrastination nor hurrying will bring 
satisfactory results; but as between the two,, 
undue deliberation is worse because it is in the 
nature of an imposition upon other players. 
Golf has become so popular a game that the 
number of players has increased by leaps and 
bounds, hence a great many clubs have an ac- 
tive playing membership so large that it is a 
problem how to accommodate all who wish to 
play, especially on Saturdays and holidays. An 
unnecessarily slow player can hold back a field 
and cause more fuming and hard feelings than 
almost any other factor in play. The same 
thing applies in open tournaments or champion- 
ships. Admittedly there are some golfers who 
are so constituted that they have to go at their 
play deliberately to do well, but they ought to 

113 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

realize that fact, and, when they see that they 
are holding others back, courteously let those 
following to ''go through." 

But a great many players who are abnor- 
mally deliberate might find, by experiment, that 
they could play just as well, if not better, by 
speeding up a bit. When a golfer spends over- 
much time in studying the line of his putt, for 
example,, first viewing it from one side of the 
hole and then from the other., only to go back 
and have another look from the first side, he is 
apt to see undulations or bumps which really 
would have no influence over the balFs course if 
utterly disregarded. The imagination gets too 
much play and the mind has too much time for 
working up hesitancy and breeding lack of con- 
fidence. The best putters, as a rule, size up the 
situation quickly, then step up and hit the ball. 

In all these suggestions, let me explain, I do 
not wish to give the impression that it is wise to 
putt or play another shot without sizing up the 
situation, or to hurry the shots. But the more 
one practises the art of taking in the layout 
quickly, and reaching a speedy decision as to 
the club to be used and what has to be done, the 
more does it become a sort of second nature. 

114 



> VALUE OF CONCENTRATION 

The professionals, as a rule, waste little time 
in the preliminaries for their shots. Naturally, 
the rejoinder might be that it is a part of their 
stock in trade to reach speedy decisions ; yet I 
do not doubt that a great many amateurs would 
find their play surely no worse if they, too, 
spent less time over the preliminaries. 

Every golfer, I realize, has his own problems 
to work out, and when I preach the doctrine of 
sizing up situations quickly, I do not for one 
moment mean to say positively that every play- 
er can step up to his ball, know immediately 
what club to use, and play his shot without 
further deliberation. Some players I am cer- 
tain can steady themselves with two or three 
practice swings, and some benefit from giving 
the line of putt deep study. But I firmly be- 
lieve there are many others who do these things 
merely from habit or from imitation. 



lis 



CHAPTER IX 

IMPORTANCE OF GOOD PHYSICAL CONDITION 

EATING, drinking, and sleeping doubtless 
play an important part in golf,, more par- 
ticularly competitive golf. And when I speak 
of drinking, I do not mean in the alcoholic 
sense. It would be presumptuous in me to 
make so bold as to present a regular formula on 
the correct hour of retiring the night before a 
match, the amount and character of food to be 
consumed, and how many swallows of water 
should be taken at meals or between meals. 
But without attempting to dictate to any one 
else, I can say this much from my own experi- 
ences: that there is nothing more truly bene- 
ficial than the early-to-bed habit just before 
and during a tournament in which the golfer 
wishes to do well. Although I never have made 
a scientific study of the matter, I am perfectly 
willing to accept as thoroughly reliable the 

ii6 



PHYSICAL CONDITION 

theory that every hour of sleep before mid- 
night is worth two after it. 

No doubt the sleep problem is one which dif- 
fers according to different ages and tempera- 
ments. I realize that there are golfers, both 
young and old, of nervous, excitable disposi- 
tions who would find it impossible to retire 
early the night before an important golf match 
and to be speedily wrapped in slumber. Pos- 
sibly there are individual cases in which early 
retirement would mean just a constant turning 
and tossing due to abnormal mental activities 
in thinking about the match of the forthcoming 
day. In such instances, it might be better for 
the golfer to be up late and at some occupation 
so physically tiring that the demands of the 
body would lull the activities of the mind. 

Hence, when I preach the early-to-bed doc- 
trine, I do, so for the rank and file of golfers, 
especially the younger players, who, in the first 
place ought to try to school themselves not to 
feel that success in a match is the do-all and 
end-all of life. If the game is played for its 
own sake, rather than for the pleasure derived 
from winning matches or prizes, the sleep prob- 
lem ought not to be particularly bothersome. 

117 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

And a good night's sleep is an undeniable 
asset in a hard match. It not only rests the 
body and stores up vigor, but it clears the eye 
and makes the ball look just that much larger 
and easier to hit. I have not the least doubt 
that that was one of the factors which played 
an important part in my victory over Vardon 
and Ray at Brookline in the national open 
championship of 19 13. Many of my friends 
asked me, the morning of the play-off, how I 
had slept. I answered them truthfully that I 
had had a good night's sleep. No doubt some of 
them thought I was saying that as a matter of 
course, while they inwardly doubted the verac- 
ity of my answer. Frequently since that play- 
off, friends have put the same question, and 
they have seemed surprised to think that I could 
sleep at all soundly when realizing that so much 
was at stake. 

Perhaps I am more than ordinarily blessed 
with phlegmatic tendencies ; at the same time, I 
am inclined to think that one reason why I man- 
aged to get in a good night's sleep was that, 
from the moment of tying with Vardon and 
Ray for the championship, I made up my mind 
that in the play-off I was simply going out with 

118 



PHYSICAL CONDITION 

the determination to play my own game to the 
best of my ability ; that there was nothing more 
I could do, and that was all there was to it. If 
I won, I won; and if I lost, I lost. No one 
could do more,, so why lose sleep over it? 

The night before the play-off I remember 
well. I retired at nine o'clock, as I had been 
doing all through the championship week. My 
sister was playing the piano down-stairs, and 
some member of the family, fearing that I 
would be disturbed, shut the door of the room 
where it was. I am extremely fond of music, 
and just then the thought of not hearing it was 
more in my mind than what would happen on 
the links the next day, so I went softly down- 
stairs to open the door again. How long I 
listened to the music after that, I have not the 
least idea, for in the midst of it I went to sleep. 
Perhaps somebody will be inclined to remark 
sarcastically, *'He must be fond of music, when 
it puts him to sleep !" But it must be remem- 
bered that I had had a rather strenuous thirty- 
six holes of golf, with an exciting wind-up, and 
I was well ready for sleep anyhow. 

It is logical, to say the least, to assume that a 
clear eye and a well-rested body are assets in 

119 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

golf. That there are men who play winning 
golf after a night of little sleep and other fac- 
tors hardly conducive to clear vision is unde- 
niable, yet the other doctrine is the one I would 
preach. For myself, I know by experience that 
my golf suffers when my eyes are not feeling 
right. One day in 19 13,, sometime after the na- 
tional open championship, I visited the Merri- 
mac Valley Country Club, near Lawrence, 
Massachusetts, after having attended, the pre- 
vious night, the annual meeting and dinner of 
the Woodland Golf Club, of which I am a mem- 
ber. As the evening advanced, the room be- 
came thick with cigar and cigarette smoke, and, 
as it was such a delightful occasion, the hour of 
departure was late. The consequence was that 
it was after midnight before I retired. 

My eyes felt heavy next morning, and re- 
mained so when I played at Merrimac Valley, 
with the result that, while I felt all right physi- 
cally, there is no doubt in my mind that my eyes 
were not doing their work properly. Almost in- 
variably I was hitting too far in back of the 
ball, but why I could not fathom. Finally, after 
playing about fourteen holes in a fashion which 
must have caused the spectators to wonder how 

120 



PHYSICAL CONDITION 

I ever could have won a championship, or even 
qualified, it struck me that the trouble must be 
with my eyes. I began to think that perhaps 
the two were not in proper focus. At any rate, 
I tried the experiment of hitting at a spot a 
little beyond the point where I would normally, 
and then I had better success. 

Since then, I have given the matter occasional 
thought, and have wondered if it is not pos- 
sible that there are times when one eye may be 
tired and the other not, so that they do not work 
in unison. It also has struck me that there may 
be a great many golfers who play with ill suc- 
cess for no other reason than that they have 
some little defect of vision which may not affect 
them in ordinary work, but which is just 
enough to handicap them in golf. People have 
glasses for close work and for distance, but 
may it not be possible that neither is exactly 
suited for getting the best results in hitting at 
a little ball which is neither near nor far from 
their center of vision? Some oculist-golfer 
may be able to give the answer. I put the ques- 
tion entirely from a layman's unscientific view- 
point. 

In the matter of eating, a great deal of dis- 

121 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLB 

cretion may be used. As a general principle, I 
would advise against hearty meals just before 
playing, and especially at luncheon between 
morning and afternoon rounds. It may readily 
be imagined that a man is apt to develop a vig- 
orous appetite during the course of a morning 
round on a long and exacting course, despite 
the impression among those who do not play the 
game that it is a lazy sort of pastime, anyway, 
just hitting the ball and walking after it. I can 
assure them that, in my own case, a round of 
golf is a sterling appetizer. To satisfy this hun- 
ger completely is to invite defeat, for it is apt to 
bring on a logy, indolent state, or to mitigate 
against the player getting "down to the ball" 
on his shots. I could cite specific instances in 
which I am convinced the better golfer lost a 
match mainly because of the ill-advised indul- 
gence of his appetite. 

On this particular point I can look back with 
a great deal of amusement to a match which I 
played in 1913 in the Massachusetts amateur 
championship. My prospective opponent and 
I, after having won our morning matches, went 
into the club-house dining-room for lunch, and, 
as it so happened, we sat opposite each other. 

122 



PHYSICAL CONDITION 

This, of course, meant that each could see what 
the other ate. Evidently he felt as hungry as I 
did, and we both sat down to some extra-gener- 
ous portions of lamb-chops, together with pota- 
toes and one or two other side-dishes. I can 
just remember that the combination served that 
day was hearty, to say the least. After having 
finished the regular course, I asked for a glass 
of milk, while my opponent for the afternoon 
inquired what there w^as for dessert. He was 
informed that there was strawberry shortcake 
and apple-pie. 

I could see that that strawberry shortcake 
was a temptation to him ; it was to me, though 
probably in lesser degree. At the same time, I 
could see that, much as he wanted a piece of it, 
he could not quite make up his mind that it 
would be the part of wisdom to eat it. Finally, 
I sang out: ''Go ahead and get a piece of it; if 
you eat it, I will, too." He ordered his piece 
of strawberry shortcake, and so did I, and we 
both ate it with a great deal of relish. The con- 
sequence of our indulgence, however, was that 
we both went out for our afternoon match with 
our stomachs rebelling at such vigorous exer- 
cise after such a feast, and it took us about 

123 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

eight or nine holes to really get going. Fortu- 
nately for each of us, the superabundance of 
food was about an equal handicap. The thing 
does not always turn out that way, however, 
so it is a good point to keep a proper curb on 
the appetite between rounds. 

While on the subject of food, I might men- 
tion that I have known of instances where golf- 
ers have had their play and food-stuffs inter- 
mingled entirely without their previous knowl- 
edge or consent. There was the case of a man 
playing at Kendall Green, Weston, Massa- 
chusetts, who hit a ball which entered the pan- 
try window of a building and was found lodged 
in a custard-pie. I never ascertained whether 
the owner of the ball played the shot from 
where the ball lay, or whether he discontinued 
his game temporarily, long enough to eat the 
pie. The other incident I have in mind was 
when I was playing off a gross score tie with P. 
W. Whittemore,, at The Country Club, Brook- 
line,, and Mr. Whittemore hooked hjs tee shot 
to the tenth hole to a spot which interfered 
seriously with a family of bees. Whether Mr. 
Whittemore likes honey, I do not know ; but I 
do know that for a while he was the center of 

124 



PHYSICAL CONDITION 

attraction for the entire colony of honey-mak- 
ers, and that, before the end of the round, one 
of his wrists was nearly double its normal size. 
Now as to drinking, meaning the drinking of 
such a temperate beverage as water. It may 
sound almost silly to say that a drink of water 
during the course of a round might be the cause 
of losing a match. Yet I am willing to go on 
record as making the statement. The thought 
might never have occurred to me were it not 
for an incident in my match with Mr. Travers 
in the National Amateur Championship at Gar- 
den City in 19 1 3. Just before driving from the 
sixth tee in that match, I went to the water 
fountain adjoining and took a refreshing drink. 
The next thing that happened was that I made 
an inglorious top of my drive. Oilman Tiffany, 
who was acting as caddy for Mr. Travers, in 
true sportsmanlike spirit volunteered me the in- 
formation then and there that it was not wise 
to drink just before driving, for the reason that 
it had a temporarily bad effect upon one of the 
nerves. At the same time, there flashed into 
my mind,, curiously enough, an experience ex- 
actly similar which I had had in a previous in- 
terscholastic match at the Woodland Golf 

125 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

Club. Since then I have heard the same opin- 
ion expressed by one or two other golfers who 
not only play the game well, but who do so 
with an analytical mind for causes and effects. 
Physical condition is not generally looked 
upon as so important a factor in golf as in a 
great many other games, but a majority of 
those who take such a viewpoint do not really 
know how much it does amount to. There is a 
tremendous physical strain, as well as the men- 
tal, in going through a National Amateur 
Championship, for example, for it means thir- 
ty-six holes of golf a day for six successive 
days, and that coming after the practice. To 
swing a golf -club once or twice is not much of a 
task, and to walk around a golf course once is 
not much of a strain, but when it comes to 
walking around seven to eight miles over a golf 
course each day, and to playing under all sorts 
of conditions, not only of the course but of the 
weather, to putting forth the effort that it re- 
quires to get a ball out of the long grass or out 
of a bunker, the average competitor finds that 
at the end of several such days he is glad 
enough of a rest. Hence there can be shown 

126 



PHYSICAL CONDITION 

wisdom not only in the matter of food but in 
exercise. 

Championships sometimes are decided as 
much on physical condition and stamina as they 
are on skill. There are golfers who, in their 
advancing years, can still play their shots with 
the same skill as in their younger days, but 
when it comes to several successive rounds of 
competitive play, they tire; the shots do not 
come off in the same old way, because there is 
not the same vigor in the stroke, and the timing 
begins to suffer. The National Amateur Cham- 
pionship of 1909, played at the Chicago Golf 
Club, Wheaton, Illinois, was decided largely 
upon the physical condition of one of the con- 
testants in the final round, or such was the 
opinion of many who watched the play all that 
week. In the final round were H. Chandler 
Egan, a former national title-holder, and Rob- 
ert A. Gardner, then a young student. All 
through the earlier rounds, Mr. Egan had been 
playing wonderful golf. On the day before the 
final round, I think it was, he ate a piece of 
apple-pie that made him really quite ill. He 
had not recovered on the morning of the final, 
when he had to play a championship match. 

127 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

That he went out and gave Mr. Gardner a hard 
tussle for the title spoke well for his courage 
and fortitude. Perhaps he would not have won 
the title in any event, for Mr. Gardner played 
a fine game that day, but from, the quality of 
Mr. Egan's game earlier in the week, it is a 
moral certainty that had he been in tiptop 
physical shape,, he would have made the finish 
closer than it was, Mr. Gardner winning by 
4 and 3. 

I have spoken of the task of walking so many 
times around a golf course and conditions of 
wind and weather. Along with these topics 
there may appropriately be said something 
about the wearing apparel. In the amateur 
championship at Chicago in 19 12, Norman F. 
Hunter of England had to drop out of the play 
in his match against Warren K. Wood, being 
overcome by the heat. He wore a coat,, as is the 
English golfer's custom. As to whether golf- 
ers should wear coats on the links, I have no 
opinion, except that I believe in being comfort- 
able. Some golfers like to play in a coat, 
Jersey, or sweater, because they like to have 
something snug to keep their shoulders in place, 
while others like to discard them for just the 

128 





VhnU, liy Kdwin L<.\ irk 



RUDOLF KNRPPER 



PHYSICAL CONDITION 

opposite reason, — that they like to get a free 
stroke. These are points which the golfer 
works out to his own satisfaction. In the mat- 
ter of apparel, the main thing, as I have said, is 
to be comfortable. 

The question of footwear is another on 
which individuals differ. Some prefer always 
to play in leather shoes with hobnails on the 
soles, where as many prefer sneakers, and some 
the rubber-soled leather shoes. I like the sneak- 
ers, when conditions are normal, for I find the 
walking easier, and the sneakers seem to give 
more freedom. At the same time,, it is an un- 
wise thing to play an important match without 
having a pair of hobnail shoes handy in case 
of rain. When the ground is wet and slippery, 
the sneakers or rubber-soled shoes give precari- 
ous footing. I remember playing at The Coun- 
try Club,, Brookline, one time, when a thunder- 
shower came up, and I was playing in sneakers. 
At the long ninth hole, my ball rested on a piece 
of ground well bestrewn with clover leaves. 
These are particularly slippery after a rain, 
and when I made my swing, I swung myself 
completely oflf my feet,, and went down flat. 



129 



CHAPTER X 



KEEPING FIT 



WHEN I first began playing golf most of 
my tournaments were either inter- 
scholastic or local. Since those days many 
things have happened to me that the average 
youth does not think about in the beginning of 
his career on the links. Perhaps the greatest 
lesson from experience, in so far as golf is con- 
cerned, IS to learn to save your strength and 
enthusiasm for the time when you really need 
them. Most of us burn ourselves out before 
it is time to meet competition of the hardest 
kind. 

As I see golf now, I would rather enter a 
championship with the knowledge that while I 
might have played more often in preparing for 
it, this handicap would be more than taken 
care of by the enthusiasm I would have for the 
matches. Lacking this keenness,, one is almost 
sure to encounter disaster. The first time this 

130 



KEEPING FIT 

came to my attention was in 191 5. When the 
summer season came around that year and 
John Anderson's work at the Fessenden School 
was over, he rushed to his boys' camp in the 
woods of New Hampshire, miles from any 
links, where he had no opportunity whatever 
to play his favorite game. He had little or no 
time to think of it either, being so busy taking 
care of the many boys who spent the summer 
with him. 

That year the Amateur Championship was 
played at the Detroit Country Club. On my 
way to it I happened upon Anderson, bent upon 
the same mission — winning the title. He in- 
formed me casually he had played but one game 
of golf since school had closed in the early sum- 
mer, two months before. My opinion was that 
he had absolutely no chance to do anything. We 
arrived on the links two days before the quali- 
fying round. Anderson went over the course 
several times, practised some mashie shots in 
addition, and expressed himself as being not 
only ready for the affair, but satisfied with his 
game. 

This all struck me as rather amusing in view 
of the fact that all the other fellows who were 

131 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

present had been hard at work since early 
spring practising for this very tournament. 
There was one other contestant who had fol- 
lowed Anderson's seeming lack of plan — Rob- 
ert A. Gardner. He had also given little time 
to golf that year. But imagine my surprise, 
when it came down to the finals, to find these 
two players the sole survivors. 

I have always attributed this rather startling 
ending of the 191 5 Amateur to the fact that 
these two golfers had entered that affair with 
the greatest enthusiasm imaginable and that 
this very thing did more than any other factor 
to bring out the splendid games they played. 
Where the others had worn themselves out in 
the preparation,, Anderson and Gardner had 
stored up an abundance of strength and en- 
thusiasm. They had ample reserve power to 
call upon in the pinches, and as the play ad- 
vanced from day to day, their games improved 
by leaps and bounds. 

Keeping fit, physically and mentally, is the 
big jog of all athletes. What would happen to 
a big college football eleven if its trainer did 
not watch particularly this important point ? I 
am inclined to think, and those close to this 

132 



KEEPING FIT 

sport have told me., that a team which is stale 
and overworked rarely lasts a full period. The 
same thing is true in track athletics. There is 
the case of Joie Ray, one of the greatest mile- 
runners we have ever produced. Ray went to 
Antwerp in 1920 to compete in the Olympic 
Games as a member of the team from the 
United States. From early winter and up to 
the time he sailed to Belgium, Ray had been in 
active competition. There was no one at his 
distance during all this long period who seemed 
to be in his class. It was felt by all who fol- 
lowed those games that, when his special event 
was run, Ray would prove an easy winner. But 
instead of coming in first in this race, Ray did 
not place ! You cannot make me believe there 
are half a dozen better men in this event than 
Joie Ray. It was just another case of being 
burned out. Ray suffered the penalty which 
comes from too much preparation. 

Of course,, when they consider golf, most 
boys will say it is not like the strenuous sports 
and that the average healthy youngster can 
play it all day without getting tired. I '11 admit 
that football or mile-running is a far more 
wearing game; but I must say that golf carries 

133 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

a greater mental strain than almost any sport 
we have. To be sure, there is such a thing as 
not playing enough to put one in just the right 
condition, and the case of John Anderson, 
which I cited, almost illustrates this. Circum- 
stances simply made it impossible for him to 
give the time to golf that he felt he should have 
given in his preparation for the Amateur 
Championship in 191 5. But the fact remains 
that his long lay-off from the game,, coupled 
with his fine physical condition, just about fit- 
ted him perfectly for the supreme test of the 
season. 

In the beginning of my competitive days I 
used to work hard and conscientiously for a big 
event. The last few seasons I have not. I 
have felt satisfied to arrive on the scene a day 
or two before the match started. Then I would 
go around the course a few times without tax- 
ing my strength to any great extent, more for 
the purpose of getting its general plan in my 
mind than for anything else. Such a scheme 
saved me mentally and physically for the play, 
just as it taught me all that was necessary to 
know about the course. 

One of the most apt illustrations of over- 
134 



KEEPING FIT 

golfing concerns the invasion of England by a 
group of United States amateurs in 19 14. In 
that year, the late Fred Herreshoif , Jerome D. 
Travers, Arthur Lockwood,, and the writer 
went over in quest of the British Amateur title 
several weeks in advance of "Chick" Evans, 
Harold Weber, Eraser Hale, and some other 
players. We, of the advance guard, thought 
we were doing the right thing. Now it happens 
that the English championship links are iso- 
lated. Once you get to them, there is nothing 
to do but to play golf. We soon tired of hav- 
ing so much of it, but we continued to play 
for want of other recreation. Just before the 
big event started, Travers came to me and said : 
"Francis, I 'm tired out. I wish this tourna- 
ment was over with." He expressed my feel- 
ings exactly. You can judge for yourself 
whether or not we were fit to play when the big 
event came. I never can be convinced that this 
was not the cause of our early elimination. 

The less the experience of a golfer, the more 
apt he is to over-golf. At the Engineer's Coun- 
try Club during the 1920 Amateur, I saw any 
number of high-class young players practising 
for hours at a time, even after they had played 

13s 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

thirty-six holes. Do you not see how little of 
value there was in such practice after muscles 
were weary from a full day of play? One 
youngster in particular was advised to smooth 
his drive. Every day he must have driven 
enough balls, following his two rounds, to equal 
the effort he had previously spent in going 
around the links. He had developed a slice. 
But how he ever hoped to remedy it, with wrists 
and muscles already fatigued, is beyond me! 
Indeed, one has but to spend a few days at a 
course before a championship event starts in 
order to separate the old hands from the 
novices. The veterans will go there for two 
purposes — hitting enough shots to get the stiff- 
ness out of their arms and familiarizing them- 
selves with the course; while the novices use 
every minute of daylight to play and practise 
Sometimes the latter class wins; but more 
often, and far too frequently, they weary them- 
selves beyond the point of recovery. 

Golf is no longer an old man's game. The 
youth of this and other nations are taking it up 
in ever increasing numbers because they have 
found that no other sport possesses quite the 
same peculiar nerve-stirring or soul-trying 

136 



KEEPING FIT 

qualities as does this one. There are two kinds 
of golf, to be sure — that played with friends 
for the mere pleasure of being outdoors with 
them and measuring strokes, and that played 
for championships and to win, although the 
same high ethics and good feeling prevail in 
both. 

To illustrate the soul-trying feature of this 
sport one has but to review in part the match 
between young Reginald M. Lewis and ^'Chick" 
Evans at the Amateur Championship in 1920. 
After battling for the best part of a day, Lewis 
stepped up to the last tee with a lead of one hole 
on Evans and drove as fine a ball down the 
middle of the fairway as any one would want. 
This fairway, for the time being, had been 
transformed into a vast amphitheater, packed 
with an enormous crowd, for the word had 
gone forth that the youngster was downing 
Evans., news that seemed miraculous to the fol- 
lowers of amateur play. Then came Evans' 
turn. He had witnessed this magnificent shot 
by Lewis and must have realized the odds were 
greatly against him, for he had to win that 
hole to prevent defeat. Can you imagine his 
distress when his tee-shot forced the crowd to 

137 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

part, a sure indication that he had pulled it off 
the fairway and would find an unfavorable lie? 

No golfer ever faced a harder task than did 
Evans when he came upon his ball. In the first 
place, a sand-trap had caught it; and in the 
second, there was a barrier between him and 
the green in the form of a clump of trees. 
Evans did the only thing possible under the con- 
ditions — tried for the green. His attempt was 
anything but a success, as his ball, striking the 
limb of a tree, bounded back upon the fairway 
but a few yards in advance of the tee-shot of 
Lewis. The latter showed judgment on his 
second by playing it for the back of the green, 
safe from all apparent harm,. As a result, 
Lewis lay just over the green on an embank- 
ment and Evans some one hundred yards away, 
both to play three. 

A fine mashie by Evans came to twenty feet 
beyond the pin. It was a grand shot; but for 
all that,, his case looked hopeless. Miracles 
were needed to win that hole and this shot had 
not been one. It seemed like a sure five for 
both, which was all that Lewis needed to win. 
Lewis took his time playing his third, a chip- 
shot that ran up nicely to within eight feet of 

138 



KEEPING FIT 

the cup. Victory seemed a certainty for him. 
To rob him of it, Evans had to sink a nasty 
downhill putt of twenty feet and depend upon 
Lewis missing one of eight! Nobody envied 
"Chick'' his position. 

Now, years of experience had taught Evans 
that a golfer should always have something in 
reserve to call upon in the crisis, and upon that 
reserve he was now to depend. Before it was 
his turn to play he had been walking back and 
forth across the green, much as does the thor- 
oughbred at the barrier, waiting for the start. 
It seemed to me that during those awesome mo- 
ments "Chick'' was weighing his chances and 
was coming to a conclusion. The outstanding 
feature of the real athlete's make-up is the un- 
canny way he has of meeting the emergency. 
Then he came to his ball, studied the line, and 
with a firm putt sent it on its course along that 
treacherous downhill green. The next thing 
we knew, it dropped out of sight into the cup. 
Under the conditions, Lewis would have proved 
himself a miracle-man extraordinary had he 
sunk his own putt for a half. As it was, he 
made a valiant attempt. It took "Chick" five 

139 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

extra holes to gain his victory — the longest 
match ever played in our Amateur. 

As I analyze that match, it was only another 
case of an accomplished golfer winning over 
one less experienced. This may seem like a 
crude statement, in view of the record of Lewis, 
but I think all will agree he is less experienced 
by far than Evans. As it was his battle, that 
day stamps him as one of the greatest fighters 
and golfers in the country. But the main 
point I want to drive home about this same 
match is that had "Chick" been weary or worn 
from too much golf,, the reserve force which 
pulled him out of as critical a hole as any 
champion ever faced would have been lacking. 

All boys have heard of Fred Wright, the 
fine young golfer who in 1920 won the Massa- 
chusetts title and tied Bobby Jones in the quali- 
fying round of the National Amateur for the 
same year. I was talking with him one day 
some months later about this point of playing 
too much. He informed me that while he played 
a great deal that year, there was a period of 
about three weeks when he did not touch a club. 
It was before the Massachusetts championship, 

140 



KEEPING FIT 

which, as usual, attracted a fine field. It was 
his ambition to win this event. 

He qualified easily enough and on each suc- 
ceeding day improved in play until he came to 
the match where he faced Jesse Guilford, the 
''Siege Gun" of the links. Guilford had been 
playing right along up to this tournament. As 
a result, he was tired and made a slow start. 
Wright, keyed up and keen on account of his 
rest, started off like a frisky colt, settled right 
down to play, and in a jiffy had a nice lead. 
Guilford found himself struggling for halved 
holes instead of wins and unable to force his 
game to its top pace. Wright won, and at- 
tributes his success to his lay-off. 

I trust from all I have said that my readers 
will not carry the impression with them that I 
recommend little or no golf as a best means of 
preparing for big things. On the contrary, I 
strongly advise a great deal of it, but not just 
before a big event. One should learn, as early 
as possible in his golf career just how much 
work and practice he needs to be in prime con- 
dition and at the top of his game. Then care 
must be used. I should advise boys and girls 
to practise their weaknesses in the spring. The 

141 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

tip as to the time to ease up is an individual 
matter. Just as soon as your scores reach your 
standard, then by all means go slow. That 's 
the sure sign you are on edge. Too much golf 
after that is sure to force you over the apex 
and downhill. 

No other problem of the game quite equals 
the one of knowing just what doses of golf 
to take to keep in fine form. In the summer 
of 1920 I did a lot of work preparing for the 
meeting Jesse Guilford and I had with Ray and 
Vardon. Five days before that meeting I did the 
course in 69, two strokes under par. I decided 
not to play again until the day before. That 
was where I made my mistake. On that day 
I repeated this fine score,, but was never so blue 
in my life. My friends were elated and counted 
on my playing a great game. I was afraid, 
and justly, that I had started downhill. The 
next day my surmise proved correct. I had 
played just once too often. Had I been a bit 
more careful, or a better judge of myself, this 
slump might not have happened. I do not put 
this down as an alibi for my defeat. Nothing 
is farther from my thoughts. I 'm merely try- 
ing to illustrate the point of this chapter. The 

142 



KEEPING FIT 

tired golfer is not the best. When he feels 
that way in his muscles or has n't a keen desire 
to play, the very best thing he can do is to for- 
get all about golf until the desire comes back. 
That is the secret of success,, once you have 
mastered your strokes. 



143 



CHAPTER XI 



GOLF IN BAD WEATHER 



WHEN mere youngsters, as I have al- 
ready stated, my brother and I had 
become enamored with golf. Thus when cold 
weather and winter came along and we still 
had a yearning for the game, we contrived to 
pass many a pleasant hour in an old barn. On 
bad days we would enter this structure with 
our mashies, several old balls, and two buckets. 
These latter we would set up in opposite cor- 
ners of the large room of the barn, and a game 
of mashie pitching would follow. 

During the golf season, we spent our pleas- 
ant days on the improvised affair in the cow- 
pasture. That is, unless we happened to 
awaken early enough to get in a few holes at 
the country club before the greens-keeper ap- 
peared, and he chased us away. But on wet 
days — and the harder it rained the better I 
liked it- — we played to our heart's content over 

144 







IJn.lrrw.i.id .V (fri(lcrw(HMl 



i'^Kiil) J, WRIGHT, JR, 



GOLF IN BAD WEATHER 

ihe well-kept course without ever being inter- 
fered with. One of our chief stunts on such 
days was to select some secluded hole, and play 
it over and over again with mid-irons and 
mashies. We soon found that our play suf- 
fered little in comparison with what we could 
accomplish in good golf weather. As a result 
of those odd moments of golf,, I find that I have 
developed a great deal of confidence in my 
game when the weather conditions are far 
from normal; I even have an assurance that, 
when the rain comes down, I can almost equal 
my best. And as luck would have it, it has 
been my fortune to play many a match or medal 
aflfair under the most trying conditions. In 
nearly all of these cases, my score has been 
low. 

As an example of what this training has 
meant to me, let me tell you of an experience 
I had in the latter part of May, 1920. We 
were holding our annual tournament for the 
country-club cup and were down to the semi- 
finals. I had been lucky enough to work my 
way to this round. In it I was scheduled to 
play Fred Wright, a really remarkable player 
for a boy, and destined to be one of the stars 

145 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

of golf in this country. The day of our match 
conditions were ideal for water sports — 
nothing else. The course was ankle deep with 
water, and it was coming down in torrents all 
the time. We waited quite a while after lunch 
in the hope that conditions would improve, but 
eventually had to sally forth in order to com- 
plete our match before dark. As proof of 
what a hold golf has on its followers, several 
hundred people followed us during our play. 
Of course., they were far better protected than 
we were. 

It did not seem possible for good golf to be 
staged under the conditions. But Wright took 
only one stroke above par to finish the first 
nine holes, where he had me two down. I was 
playing as well as I knew how, and I can state 
right here that Wright was staging the sort 
of game that will put a golfer ahead in ninety 
out of a hundred matches. It was a most re- 
markable performance in view of the condi- 
tions. The day I defeated Vardon and Ray 
for the United States Open Title in the play-oflf 
match, nearly every reporter commented upon 
the fine golf exhibited under such trying condi- 
tions. Well, if it rained hard at that time, it 

146 



GOLF IN BAD WEATHER 

was merely an April shower compared to the 
"near cloud-burst" that Wright and I were 
driving through. 

At the turn a strange thing happened. 
Wright wavered just a trifle during the last 
nine holes., while I went better than I knew 
how. My score for this half the journey was 
a 34, which brought me the victory by 2 and 
I. This gave me a medal of 75 against Fred 
Wright's "jy. And I don't mind saying those 
marks are a feat in themselves even when con- 
ditions are perfect for golf. 

The feature of our play throughout the 
struggle was our iron shots. With the rain 
driving in under our broad-rimmed hats, it 
was no easy matter to pick the ball out of a 
wet lie and have it land on the green fairly 
close to the cup when we used our mashies. 
Yet we had uniformly fine success at doing 
this. That is about the way almost every one 
looked upon the game, except those who have 
studied and played it longest. These latter 
know that golf is not such a difficult game in 
wet weather, unless there happens to come a 
deluge. That is just what makes it such a fine 
sport. A tennis-match or ball-game could not 

H7 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

possibly be run off on such days. But your 
golfer need not be denied his rounds by the 
weather, except where there is snow and ice. 
And we have our splendid southern courses to 
take care of such hazards. 

I think, as I look back upon my game with 
Fred Wright, that the cause for the sudden 
turn in our match in my favor was the matter 
of clothing. I was well bundled up to keep 
warm, whereas Wright was too lightly 
dressed. As a result, he felt the cold, and his 
muscles probably contracted a bit from its ef- 
fect. This prevented him keeping up the ter- 
rific pace he set for the first half and gave me 
my opening. 

In the matter of wearing-apparel to meet 
such conditions, warm clothing is quite essen- 
tial. If one gets chilled,, the muscles are bound 
to tighten; and when they do, good playing is 
out of the question. The grip of the club in 
wet weather is a matter of worry to many. A 
good many chaps "doctor" theirs, sometimes 
with resin. Tom Claflin, a well-known Boston 
golfer, winds a piece of cotton string around 
the leather grips of his clubs when it rains,, 
and claims that he gets a much better grip as 

148 



GOLF IN BAD WEATHER 

a result. As I happened to have played him 
that same morning in just as hard a rain, I can 
vouch for the fact that his grip was steady 
throughout and that he never complained of 
any handicap of this sort. Indeed, I was most 
fortunate to defeat him after going an extra 
hole. 

Another excellent wet-weather idea is to 
wear a pair of rough and inexpensive cotton 
gloves. These must be saturated in water be- 
fore a firm grip results, but that is not diffi- 
cult to accomplish when torrents are falling. 
Most golfers I know prefer this sort of grip, 
though my own view leans toward a wrapping 
of ordinary surgeons' gauze. This is easily 
procured at any drug-store, and any one can 
wrap it on the grips of his various clubs, as 
it is put on in precisely the same manner as 
the regular calfskin grip. Like the cotton 
glove, it too has to be soaked first in water 
before a firm hold is assured. 

Many friends of mine ask me continually 
how it is I can play almost as well in wet 
weather as I can in the sunshine. I do not 
know the exact reason, but I am inclined to 
attribute it to my early training, which I out- 

149 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

lined briefly in the beginning of this chapter. 
There were many humorous incidents con- 
nected with those early school-days, which did 
not appear so to me at the time of their hap- 
pening. I recall that I gave my good mother 
many opportunities to reprimand me for play- 
ing golf in the pouring rain. She has often 
told me since that on such days when she asked 
me to do anything for her, my reply invariably 
was,, ''Oh, please!— It 's too wet. Mother." Yet 
I never hesitated to brave the weather for a 
chance at golf ! This seems altogether reason- 
able, for while I was taught to obey, I believe 
my dear mater sensed the situation correctly. 
She seemed to divine that the game was a sort 
of religion with me. This, I take it, is so of 
every real golfer, or should be. 

My explanation of playing golf in the rain 
is not difficult. Most players are inclined to 
look upon wet weather as a calamity. It seems 
to them no time for golf. To my way of think- 
ing, it is merely a matter of psychology. One 
can handicap himself greatly by thinking the 
rain is a big hindrance. The preferable view 
is to make yourself think the weather could 
be much worse, no matter how heavy the 

150 



GOLF IN BAD WEATHER 

downpour. Have you heard the story of the 
optimist who accidentally fell from a window 
of the fifteenth floor of the Woolworth Build- 
ing? As he came rushing by an open window 
of the third floor, he was heard to gasp, "Well, 
I have n't struck anything yet." Golf tempera- 
ment must be of the same order on inclement 
days. We must not think that all is lost simply 
because the weather is not the most agreeable. 
And there is always the consoling thought, — 
never to be denied, as it is true, — that the other 
fellow has to buck just the same conditions. 
That is well worth thinking of. 

This is much the frame of mind of Walter 
Hagen, a former open champion. When Hagen 
was preparing to go to England in quest of 
the British Open Title, there was a great to-do 
about the effect upon his game of the high 
winds, so prevalent on the courses over there. 
No doubt, this wind proved a diflicult handi- 
cap for Hagen ; but he remarked before sailing 
that it appeared to him as though Vardon, 
Mitchell, and the other British cracks would 
find it just as big a one. That is the view to 
take of inclement weather conditions. Any 

151 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

other will wreck your game. The chap who 
grumbles is a goner. 

To read what I have written, one may draw 
the conclusion that I thoroughly enjoy getting 
drenched during a golf match. Let me state 
right here that this is far from the case. I 
much prefer sunshine and a snappy air. But 
one cannot reckon on such weather; and as 
golf is played according to schedule, there is 
but one way to enter a game — to feel that the 
weather is by no means a handicap to you. 

The golfer known as a mud-horse is popu- 
larly supposed to be one who can plow 
around in the rain and mud at about the same 
pace he would set on a good day. As a matter 
of fact, he is nothing more than the player who 
takes the breaks cheerfully and is prepared for 
whatever comes, be it a bad day or a corking 
good opponent. I recall a game I once played 
with the late Tom Anderson, which caused me 
to think some fellows were better in the rain 
than at other times. The links we played over 
resembled closely the Great Lakes done in 
miniature. Ordinary sand-traps were quick- 
sands,, and deep puddles filled the fairways. 
Even the putting-greens were covered in many 

152 



GOLF IN BAD WEATHER 

places. And it was raining hard all the while. 
Tom got under way at a fast clip, and, without 
exaggeration I can say that I have yet to be 
treated to a better brand of golf than he dis- 
played under the conditions. A difficult first 
nine was accomplished in 35, and he came in 
with a y2 to his credit, one under par. Tom 
was hitting prodigious tee-shots every time, 
and these, combined with some fine' iron play, 
turned the trick. The thing that impressed me 
most was the height of all his shots. He had 
learned that good results can be obtained on 
wet courses only by hitting the ball into the air. 
Low scores on heavy courses are not un- 
usual and are easily explained. They are 
caused in part by the uniform condition of the 
putting-greens. A golfer can putt with more 
consistency on a slow green than upon one that 
possesses the speed of a skating-rink. Another 
reason is that his mashie approaches are more 
likely to stay close to where they fall than 
would otherwise be the case. That permits 
him to approach fearlessly. J. H. Taylor, the 
British golfer and reputed to be the best ex- 
ponent of the fickle club, told me that the se- 
cret of his success with the mashie was due to 

153 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

the fact that he always tried to pitch his ball 
into the cup on the fly. He explains that, if it 
carried to the hole, it would usually remain in 
its near vicinity, as he put so much back-spin 
on the shot. 

To return again to my early training as a 
mud-horse and the manner in which I stole my 
golf (it was nothing else),, I recall many stunts 
that more than helped my game as I grew 
older. You will remember my saying that 
another boy and I (sometimes it was my older 
brother Wilfred) would sneak off to a hole far 
removed from the club-house and there disport 
ourselves like members in good standing, ex- 
cept that the members would have had the 
pleasure of knowing that they could not be 
removed or ejected. In a great many cases 
we were compelled to play two holes over and 
over again. Instead of playing these holes in 
the orthodox manner, it was quite necessary 
to play from one green to another in order to 
avoid being seen. A rule was made to the 
effect that whoever won a hole had the privi- 
lege of saying just how the next one should 
be played. Needless to say the easiest ways 
were never selected. 

154 



GOLF IN BAD WEATHER 

For instance, one of the most popular selec- 
tions was that of making the loser play over 
a wooded section. The length of such holes 
was about four hundred odd yards, and you 
can well imagine that it was not long before 
we discovered the best way of getting distance 
with our mid-irons and mashies. I have always 
felt that such training could not be improved 
upon. Nowadays, when I think I need a little 
practice in the use of my mashie or mid-iron, 
I go back to the schemes of those good old 
days and pick out the hardest shots I can work 
out, whether they happen to be the regular 
shots on the course or not. I find this does me 
more good than anything I can practise. Fol- 
lowing this procedure, one is bound to get shots 
that he would never get in the course of a 
round of the links. 

Usually, upon my return home on one of 
those ''damp days," my folks would confiscate 
my clubs and balls as a punishment for playing 
golf at the Brookline Country Club. The clubs 
were usually hidden away. But the next day 
I invariably found them. My mother often 
remarked that she wished I could find my hat 
or coat as easily as I could those golf -sticks. 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

The day I played Fred Wright, I must con- 
fess., was the worst day I can ever remember 
playing the game. The wind blew sixty miles 
an hour ; and had I not been clothed warmly, 
I know that it would have left me in bad shape. 
My advice to all who have to start their golf 
matches in a rain-storm is to dress warmly 
about the body. If you can avoid the cold feel- 
ing that is so certain to follow when your 
clothing becomes soaking wet, you will notice 
that your game suffers but little in comparison 
with what you may expect it to be when the 
sun shines. 

A warm bath after you have finished, and 
you will really suffer no ill effects from your 
diversion. 

At Pittsburgh, in 19 19, during the Amateur 
contest,, we had quite a bit of all the elements. 
Every day for four days it rained very hard. 
Yet the scores that were turned in more than 
satisfied the most critical. Thunder-showers 
cut loose with remarkable ferocity ; yet the play 
went along, and splendid scoring was the re- 
sult. In my first qualifying round I was treated 
to weather quite out of the ordinary. My 
partner was E. H. Bankard, of the Midlothian 

156 



GOLF IN BAD WEATHER 

Club of Chicago. Lowering clouds as we 
started off the eighteenth tee told us that a 
storm was imminent. Playing as rapidly as 
we dared, we reached the last green as the 
storm broke. As Bankard stepped up to make 
his approach putt, a flash of lightning flared 
across the sky. In the next instant the heavens 
seemed to open, and, before one could say Jack 
Robinson, there was a perfect downpour of the 
largest hailstones I have ever seen. My part- 
ner hurriedly putted his ball out of sight and 
made a bee-line for the club-house, leaving me 
to the mercy of those icy stones. I could not 
blame him, though, because his day's work 
was over. Bareheaded., I stepped up and from 
a distance of twenty feet made a truly fine putt 
over the hobbly hailstones. The ball stopped 
eighteen inches from the hole, and ordinarily, 
I feel pretty certain of making putts of this 
distance. I carefully removed the obstacles 
from, my path and prepared to hole that short 
putt. Just as the ball seemed ready to drop into 
the waiting hole, an extra large stone landed 
directly between the ball and the hole and sud- 
denly stopped my putt on the edge of the cup! 



157 



CHAPTER XII 

IMAGINATION IN GOLF 

AFTER playing golf for many years, I have 
found that success depends upon two 
things : mental and physical force. But I fear 
that too many golfers believe that the latter 
is the outstanding reason for playing well, 
probably because they have the same feeling 
about other sports. While I do not mean to 
infer that games like baseball, football, and 
tennis put a premium on strength above all 
else, there is a marked difference between them 
and golf. 

For one thing, these three games are played 
on practically the same kind of fields, no mat- 
ter where staged. Whereas in golf you are 
constantly encountering numerous and varied 
hazards in the shape of sand-traps, bushes, 
ponds, long grass,, and so on. The knowledge 
that these hazards actually exist and are to be 
found where they are is one great cause for 

158 



IMAGINATION IN GOLF 

many upsets in golf. They cause one to 
imagine a great deal more than he should. 

To me, this imagination represents about 
eighty per cent, of golf. In other words, as 
you look down the fairway and see a patch 
of long grass or a sand-trap, the first thing 
that comes to your mind is how to avoid this 
particular hazard. Hazards are magnetic, and 
possess the faculty of drawing your ball to- 
ward them. This seems to be especially true 
if you devote every effort toward avoiding 
them. 

If golfers would attempt cultivating the idea 
that there are no traps in the way, or, instead 
of thinking so much about them, do as Walter 
Hagen does, believe that, if you do fall into 
one, your lie will be good and enable you to 
get out without penalty, I believe they would 
have a far greater measure of success in play. 

Almost every boy or girl who rides a bicycle 
will recall how easy it was to hit a tree when 
he or she began riding. Just as soon as you 
noted one somewhere along the road, you 
would let the thought of your running into it 
master you. Consequently, you would go 
pounding into it. I learned a similar lesson 

159 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

about golf the other day when playing a round 
at the Woodland Golf Club. A wild tee-shot 
at the third hole landed me in a little grove 
to the right of the course among the trees. 
My ball lay about a hundred and seventy yards 
from the green. Some sixty yards in front of 
me, and directly in my course, stood a huge 
oak. This, apparently, shut off any chance I 
might take to reach the green. After study- 
ing the situation carefully, I came to the con- 
clusion that the shot for me to attempt was a 
safe pitch to the fairway. 

So I played with nothing else in mind. Just 
as it appeared that I had achieved my object, 
my ball struck a small twig and came bounding 
back to where I stood. Again I tried the same 
shot, and again my ball hit the same twig and 
rebounded to me. I began to think rapidly at 
this point of the game, and came to the deci- 
sion that I would try to reach the green. Tak- 
ing the mid-iron from my bag, I took a good 
look at the big oak which completely stymied 
me. Golf is odd in that you never seem able 
to accomplish the thing you most desire to 
do. For this reason, I had little faith in my 
chances of getting by that tree. Nevertheless, 

1 60 



IMAGINATION IN GOLF 

I took my mid-iron and tried my best to play 
into the tree. My shot missed it nicely, stole 
through the branches without mishap, and, 
when I came to my ball again, it was quite 
near the hole. I decided right away that the 
best way to play a ball out of such a hazard 
was to try and hit the tree. One may do so 
once in a great while, but the average will be 
greatly in favor of your not doing so. 

A friend of mine told me of an odd experi- 
ence of this kind on the part of Walter J. 
Travis when playing in a match at Palm Beach 
in 19 1 7. Travis, as you probably recall, was 
considered to be the most accurate putter in 
the game. Coming to the ninth hole, Travis 
was some fifteen yards off the green. His 
opponent's ball was almost on the green and 
directly in his line for the cup. Travis took out 
his putter and attempted to run up dead to the 
cup. His ball was played so accurately that 
it struck the other directly in the center and 
rolled it onto the green, again directly in his 
line. My friend asked Travis afterward why 
he had not tried to putt around the other man's 
ball. "Why," he replied, 'T never thought I 
could hit it. It was so far away that I tried 

161 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

my best to keep on the line, thinking that my 
putt would vary just enough to clear his ball. 
I was as much surprised as any one when I 
struck the ball." 

One thing I have noticed among young 
golfers is their great deliberateness. At my 
home city we have two very good young 
players. Some day they will be well-known 
figures in the golfing world, but I believe their 
progress will be slow. From watching them 
play, it seems to me that they have been warned 
so often never to become careless that they 
have gone to the other extreme. When either 
reaches the putting-greens, you wonder how 
long it will be before he will play his ball. 

In the beginning of this chapter I said that 
I considered imagination represented eighty 
per cent, of the game of golf. The more I 
watch these two boys play, the more certain 
I am that this is so. Each studies every putt 
from, both sides of the hole ; each takes several 
practice swings before hitting the ball; and 
then each will play his shot. The strange part 
of it all to me is that they get such excellent 
results with such a method,, for I doubt the 
wisdom of their course for many reasons. 

162 



IMAGINATION IN GOLF 

When a school-boy myself, I was as delib- 
erate on the greens as either of these boys. 
Then I could fuss around over a putt and con- 
sume as much time as any one. To-day I know 
of no one who plays as rapidly as I do. And I 
know very well I am not careless. 

My reasons for playing quickly are two: 
first of all, I begin concentrating upon my next 
shot as soon as I have hit the ball. I think 
of what club I should use, what position on 
the course I wish to reach, and all the points 
that have any bearing on my next move. These 
are decided before I reach my lie. Once there, 
there is no need of wasting a minute. My sec- 
ond reason for playing quickly is to prevent 
any disastrous thoughts creeping into my mind. 
For example, if I have a four- foot putt to 
make to win the hole, I take a glance at the 
cup, for the line can be seen instantly, imme- 
diately take my stance, and putt for this line. 
In following this procedure, the thought of 
'^missing that putt" never has a chance to 
enter my head. I just don't give it time. 

At one time or another, every golfer has 
heard a player remark, 'T knew I should miss 
that putt!" This is a confession that he is 

163 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

thinking the wrong way about the game. Had 
he walked to his ball on the green, taken in 
the line of the putt at a glance, and concen- 
trated his efforts upon putting the ball along 
this line, I feel quite certain he could have 
putted with a marked degree of confidence. 
It 's the deliberate delay which permits one to 
get those upsetting thoughts about dubbing a 
shot. Don't give your mind time to consider 
any other matter than the correct playing of 
each shot. 

The same line of reasoning applies to haz- 
ards. One of my friends who knows how to 
play golf wonderfully well always goes to 
pieces at a little water-hole on his home course. 
He told me the last time we played together 
on this course that on the previous round he 
had pitched eight balls into this pond before 
getting one safely over. The reason for this 
gross error is plain. He was thinking of the 
water to such an extent that he could not con- 
centrate upon his shot. The sole cure for 
such trouble is to eliminate all thoughts except 
of keeping your eye on the ball. 

Young golfers are too easily upset when 
they miss a shot. They invariably expect too 

164 



IMAGINATION IN GOLF 

much of themselves. This is more certain to 
be the case the better they play. They carry 
about with them the idea that every stroke 
should be perfection itself and that every putt 
should drop in the cup. This is a most unfor- 
tunate view to take of the game, although con- 
fidence is never amiss. 

But young golfers possessing abundant con- 
fidence seem easily to overlook the fact that 
all players must make a few mistakes. I al- 
w^ays allow for a few errors on each round. 
When I dub a putt or a stroke, I consider it 
as one of the inevitable errors of the game. 
This gives me a sort of reserve power that 
enables me to keep going all the while. Poor 
shots do not upset me. I refuse to become dis- 
couraged. On the other hand, the youngster 
with a good game in his bag is prone to crack 
when he plays a poor shot or two. The re- 
sult is either a loss of temper or of concen- 
tration, both of which are fatal. Regardless 
of how badly things are going, one may con- 
sole himself with the thought that the break 
in his favor will soon come. Bad lies, dubbed 
shots, and all those heart-breakers of a round, 
usually divide themselves equally between op- 

165 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

ponents. Do not let them upset you. Keep 
your mind on the next shot and play it before 
disconcerting thoughts can enter your mind. 
This is by far the best mental attitude to 
adopt when golfing. Otherwise, you will lose 
more than your share of matches as well as 
of the real pleasure golf willingly gives to those 
who can control themselves in every respect. 
To my way of thinking, golf is a splendid de- 
veloper of character. Self-control is one of 
the finest qualities to possess, and there is really 
no better way to test your supply of it than 
to play golf. 



i66 



CHAPTER XIII 
driving: distance and accuracy 

THE man who is fortunate enough to gain 
more than local fame, if such it may be 
called, in this wonderful game of golf is the 
object of many queries about this, that, or the 
other thing in connection with his play and his 
experiences on the links. He is certain to be 
asked what club he likes most among those 
which he generally carries ; what kind of shot 
he likes most to play; what club he considers 
most valuable J and what shot gives him the 
greatest inward sensation of pleasure when 
successfully accomplished. Some golfers may 
find such questions easy to answer, but I must 
confess to a measure of perplexity, at times, in 
diagnosing my own impressions,, particularly 
with reference to what shot gives the greatest 
reward in thrills. There unquestionably is a 
great delight in getting away a long, straight 
drive, where the ball travels far through the 

167 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

;air, and perhaps bounds merrily along for 
many additional yards after striking the 
ground; there is the pleasure, inspired by a 
feeling of mastery, in compelling the ball to 
turn either to right or left to avoid some haz- 
ard,, simply by a knowledge of how to hit it 
for what is termed a slice or pull; there is joy 
in laying a mashie-shot dead, when you know 
that you have hit it firmly and have gained 
only what the shot actually deserved; there is 
a sort of exultation in hitting a long putt boldly 
and seeing the ball drop into the cup, an exulta- 
tion intensified if you happen to have that 
putt for a half or the hole. Yet more than 
any of these, as I think over the gamut of shots 
in golf, it strikes me that the greatest delight 
of all is to find the ball sitting nicely up on 
the turf in the fairway with enough distance 
ahead to call for a full shot with the brassie, 
and then get away cleanly, with all the force 
at command, a shot with that club which, ex- 
cept for the number who use it for driving, 
has gone much out of fashion in these days 
of the lively ball. 

My observation would lead me to believe 
that the average golfer has his greatest pleas- 

i68 



DISTANCE AND ACCURACY 

ure when he makes what, for him, is an un- 
usually good drive. This does not necessarily 
apply to the long hitter. There must be just 
as much satisfaction in a drive of 175 yards 
for the man who normally gets only 1 50,, as in 
a drive of 300 yards for him who frequently 
gets 250. In either case, there is the inward 
feeling of having accomplished something out 
of the ordinary, something which proves that 
there are latent powers in the man to be de- 
veloped, so that, in time, his long drive of to- 
day will be his normal drive of to-morrow. 

This matter of driving is one point that I 
would like to dwell upon, for it is a department 
of the game in which the young golfer, or the 
beginner, is apt to start out with misguided 
ideas. In previous chapters it has been pointed 
out that the long driver is not necessarily the 
winner. Moderate distance, combined with 
accuracy, will win far more matches, or pro- 
duce far better scores, than extraordinary 
distances but bad direction. If a golfer goes 
on the tee and with a prodigious effort sends 
the ball 300 yards, but out of bounds, what has 
he gained ? Only the right to play another ball 
from the tee, with the chance of equally dis- 

169 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

astrous results from the very fact that he al- 
ready has wasted a stroke. One of the com- 
monest mottoes is that ''the longest way round 
is the shortest way home''; but in golf that 
is seldom the case; its only application, per- 
haps, is on a hole of the dog-leg variety, where 
one golfer takes a chance of getting into trouble 
by cutting a corner, while the other elects to 
play strictly along the line of the fairway. 

It is an excellent thing for the golfer to get 
into the habit, if he can, of mentally comparing 
his drive with what he remembers having done 
before at the same hole, rather than to dis- 
parage it by noticing how many yards he may 
be in back of his friend or rival. If he can 
bring himself into this enviable frame of mind, 
he has done much toward a greater enjoyment 
of golf, as well as toward greater efficiency in 
competition. This lesson came home to me 
during the Greater Boston Interscholastic 
Championship of 19 lo, at the Woodland Golf 
Club. One of the side events of that cham- 
pionship was a driving-competition, which took 
place at the eighth hole. When it came my 
turn to drive, I got away three drives that I 
inwardly thought were ''beauties." They were 

170 



DISTANCE AND ACCURACY 

hit clean and hard, and the distances gained 
were highly satisfactory to me as I stood on 
the tee. When it came to measurements, how- 
ever, my three efforts were far short, in total 
distance, of the three which won the prize. 
The fact that I had hit three balls cleanly and 
with all the power that I could muster brought 
the realization that I simply was not physically 
constituted to compete successfully in a driv- 
ing-competition with older and stronger boys, 
and I perforce had to derive what satisfaction 
I could out of the fact that I had done as well 
as I did. 

Long driving is not an over-night acquire- 
ment. The boy or girl who takes up golf and 
expects to acquire distance and accuracy in 
short order is pretty apt to be disappointed. 
Getting greater distance is a slow, steady, and 
almost imperceptible process, which comes 
about as the golfer's muscles are strengthened 
by the process of swinging the clubs, as mind 
and muscles get to working in better unison, 
and as practice allovv^s the player to think and 
worry less over whether he is going to hit the 
ball squarely from tee or fair-green. When 
that part of the game becomes a little more 

171 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

second nature, then there is fairly certain to 
be a few yards' additional length with the 
wooden shots and long irons, because the swing 
is apt to become freer. 

Sometimes it makes quite a difference what 
style of club the golfer is using. When I was 
a youngster and new to the game, I labored 
under the false impression that in order to get 
equal distance with other boys larger than my- 
self it would be necessary for me to use a long 
and comparatively heavy driver, the length to 
provide added leverage, and the weight to give 
just so much more initial impetus to the ball in 
its flight. It is with a smile that I now recall 
how at one time, when considerably younger 
and smaller than now, I struggled along with 
a driver forty-six inches long and fifteen 
ounces in weight, longer and heavier than the 
clubs which I use to-day. Of course it did not 
bring about the desired results, because the 
driver was too long and too heavy for me to 
swing quickly. It is quite likely that there 
are many playing the game to-day and getting 
poor results in their driving who would find 
quite an improvement if they used a brassie, 
instead of a driver, for the tee-shots. The 

172 



DISTANCE AND ACCURACY 

brassie face is laid back more than that of the 
driver, and even though many brassies are 
made with only a little more loft than the 
driver, at the same time this little helps to get 
the ball into the air. It also has the brass on the 
bottom of the club, v^hich gives a little more 
"bite" as th^ club-head sweeps the ground and 
comes in contact with the ball. Many golfers 
may prefer the driver because, with its 
straighter face, the trajectory of the ball is 
kept lower and gives more run to the ball; 
while it also works to advantage in playing 
against a wind. At the same time, one has, 
perhaps,, more confidence in using a brassie 
with the feeling that it is just so much easier 
to get the ball away from the ground. It is 
entirely a matter for the individual, however. 
The only point that I would like to emphasize 
doubly is that it pays to learn to play the 
wooden clubs ; for while the iron may produce 
excellent distance, there are times when a full 
brassie-shot or a full drive will save a stroke 
that never could be done with anything else. 
Moreover, the pleasure of getting away a full 
wooden shot, as I said before,, is great. 
For downright usefulness, as well as pleas- 

173 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

ure, there is hardly any other shot in golf quite 
the equal of the well-played mashie. There are 
long drivers in abundance, but it would not be 
stretching the point to say that for every 
twenty long drivers there is only one golfer 
who is equally effective with his mashie. This 
also refers to another club for the short ap- 
proach, that is, the mashie-niblick, and per- 
haps, to a lesser extent, the niblick. The good 
drive unquestionably is a great asset in com- 
petitive golf but as a rule it is the skill with 
the mashie that ordinarily stamps one golfer 
as superior to another. Here is the club which 
comes into play when the ball is comfortably 
near the hole, and fortunate is the man who 
can consistently get his ball nearer the hole 
than his opponent. Not only is he surer of get- 
ting down in two putts, but he has so much 
greater percent^ige of opportunities for getting 
down in one. 

It is surprising how different is the attitude 
with which many a golfer faces the drive and 
that with which he goes at his mashie-play. 
On the tee his method is bold. He takes his 
stance,, takes back his club and hits at the ball 
in a manner which leaves no impression of 

174 



DISTANCE AND ACCURACY 

uncertainty as to his intentions. Plainly, it 
is his intention that the ball is to go as far 
from, the tee as it is within his power to make 
it. But put that man within seventy-five or a 
hundred yards of a green, with a mashie in his 
hands and the ball in a good lie, and what hap- 
pens ? The distance is too short., we '11 say, 
for a full mashie, and he hits the ball as if 
afraid that it might be an egg and that his club 
would break the shell. There is a lack of firm- 
ness about the shot which is fatal to success. 
It may not be so pronounced with a full mashie, 
but how often we see a seventy-five-yard ap- 
proach only half hit, and the ball either stop 
well short of the green or barely get to the edge 
of it and still a considerable distance from the 
hole. 

My own motto is that every shot should 
be hit firmly, the mashie as well as the long 
iron or the still longer drive. Therefore., as 
the mashie is the club of which so many golfers 
seem, to feel ''afraid" when facing a certain 
kind of shot, my own belief is that one of the 
best means of improving one's game is to put 
in a tremendous amount of practice with the 
mashie. Walter J. Travis was never what 

175 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

might be called a long driver, but he won 
tournament after tournament and a number of 
championships because of his extraordinary 
skill with the mashie, supplemented by his re- 
markable putting. And even his putting had 
some of its success, no doubt,, because of his 
mashie-play. A man who could so uniformly 
lay his ball well up to the hole was fairly cer- 
tain of going down with more than average 
frequency in one putt, and thereby came some 
of that reputation as a putter which fell to 
Mr. Travis's lot. That is my own explanation, 
at any rate ; which is not saying, by any means, 
that Mr. Travis has not been a great putter 
even when his ball has been far from the hole. 
The trouble that hosts of golfers experience 
in their mashie-play arises, according to my 
observation, from timidity — a tendency to let 
up in the stroke for fear of hitting too hard. 
Now with the mashie, or any other club, there 
is nothing more essential to success in golf than 
hitting the ball firmly. If the shot calls for 
a mashie, and yet the distance is too short for 
a full mashie,, then, to my mind, the proper 
way to play it is to cut down the length of the 
swing and apply full power to the stroke, let- 

176 



DISTANCE AND ACCURACY 

ting the shortening of the swing take care of 
the distance. The moment the effort is made 
to take the full mashie-swing, and then cut 
down the distance by letting down in force at 
the finish,, the usual result is that the ball is not 
well hit, or it is not hit half hard enough. On 
the other hand, with the abbreviated swing, 
the ball is hit, relatively,, just as hard as with 
the full swing; hence it is much more apt to 
go straight and is far better controlled. As 
to how far back to take the club for the dis- 
tance to be gained, that is something on which, 
with practice and experience, the eye and 
muscles coordinate and telegraph to the brain 
instinctively. There are,, of course, different 
kinds of mashie-shots to be learned, according 
to conditions of turf and other factors which 
enter into the game. If there is an approach 
which calls for a carry over a bunker fairly 
close to the green, the ball has to go into the 
air, and the golfer will learn that the best way 
of getting this result is by grip;)ing his club 
loosely well up on the handle, letting the club- 
head brush the ground as it approaches it, and 
the natural loft of the club's face ;end the ball 
into the air. Then there is the ar roach where 

177 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

it is better to keep the ball low,, where the grip 
is firmer and the ball somewhat ^'smothered" 
as the face of the club hits it and passes into 
the turf. 

The firm stroke appHes not only to the 
mashie, but to all the clubs used. Another 
point I should like to mention is that, in my 
opinion, it is unwise to "under-club'' a shot,, 
that is to say, not to press with a mashie to 
cover the distance which could be gained more 
easily with, say, a three-quarters shot with a 
mid-iron. The moment the player overexerts 
himself trying to get more than the norm.al 
distance with a club, he does so at the expense 
of accuracy. The thought of that extra dis- 
tance to be covered predominates over every- 
thing else. 

Along this same line, too, is another error 
to which many a golfer is prone, which is in 
thinking that, because his opponent has used 
a certain club for a certain shot, he must do 
likewise. Time and time again it has hap- 
pened that one player in a match has taken, 
we '11 say, a mid-iron to reach a green, and his 
opponent, seeing the success of the shot, takes 
the same club against his own inward convic- 

178 



DISTANCE AND ACCURACY 

tion that he ought to employ a cleek. Each 
golfer should be his own best judge of what 
club to use for a shot, and not be governed by 
what anybody else does. The other player's 
mid-iron may be of a type for getting greater 
distance than yours, for one thing; and for 
another, it is always wisest to realize your own 
limitations and govern yourself accordingly. 



179 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE ADVANTAGE OF LONG DRIVES 

I KNOW there is great risk that I shall be 
misunderstood, but I want to state at the 
outset of this chapter that driving is one of 
the most important shots for youngsters to 
master when they take up golf, even though 
most championships have been won by ap- 
proaching and putting. The fear I have in 
making this statement is that I shall encourage 
that fatal tendency which all golfers find it 
necessary to curb — the tendency to slug the 
ball in order to get distance. The results of 
such pressing are always discouraging. Hap- 
pily for golf, there is a vast difference between 
driving, or using the wood, and in hitting the 
ball with sheer strength. 

It seems to me that the reason for young 
players making every effort to master driving 
is most apparent. As time passes,, the long 
drivers are forging to the front. In one year 

i8o 



ADVANTAGE OF LONG DRIVES 

(1919), for instance, Hagen, Barnes, and 
Herron were at the top in amateur and pro- 
fessional ranks. A study of their games will 
show you that all three were well above the 
average from the tee, Herron especially so. 
But in every case they combined distance with 
accuracy. This latter quality must enter into 
the driver and brassie shots, else the player 
meets with disaster sooner or later, as does the 
slugger always for he lacks control. 

The advantages of long wood-shots come 
more and more to the front. But this is never 
so when the long driver is lacking in skill with 
the other shots. I have stated at the outset 
that former titles went to those who best ap- 
proached and putted. But to-day we are 
reaching a point in golf where many stars 
have almost equal ability at laying them dead 
with the irons or running them down when 
once on the green. There remains but one way 
for a competitor to win such a match with any 
degree of certainty when his opponent is his 
equal at short distances — long shots. 

Last fall I had a talk with Charley Burgess, 
my club's professional, as to which is the most 
valuable stroke in golf. Burgess, a keen stu- 

181 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

dent of the game, gives this position to the 
long wood-shot. And he sums it tip most ef- 
fectively,, so that any one may understand: 
''Let us take two players who are equal with the 
mashie and putter; one will win one day, the 
other the next. There is nothing outstanding 
in the game played by either which warrants 
the belief that one of these fellows is a better 
player than the other. Now here is where long 
shots come in. Let us take, for example, a 
hole of 485 yards, and assume that one of 
these players is long and accurate with his 
wood, and the other is only straight down the 
line. The long player will usually get on such 
a green in two shots. The accurate one takes 
three. Now,, unless this third shot is dead to 
the pin, which it will not be in the long run, 
the golfer who consistently gets there in two 
is going to win such holes. It is these long 
holes which tell the tale in long driving versus 
average driving. When all else is equal, the 
long driver will win such matches. He 's just 
bound to." 

Nearly every golf article of merit deals with 
the importance of approaching and putting. 
The accent has always been placed there. There 

182 



ADVANTAGE OF LONG DRIVES 

is no doubt in my mind that those authors ex- 
perienced in the game itself, have hit the nail 
on the head in laying stress on these shots. 
Lacking skill in them, no golfer can ever break 
through to recognition. But they are by no 
means the gage to-day of top rank. It seems 
to me, however, that all this stress which has 
been placed on the short shots of the game has 
been heeded by all players who have reached 
any prominence. Those who rank well in golf 
to-day have certainly taken the wholesale ad- 
vice given by all experts, in that they have 
practised with their irons and putters to such 
an extent that accuracy with them is assured. 
The lesson of golf, in so far as it applies to 
short shots, has been learned. This, more than 
all else, makes the argument for length more 
decisive. And those stars who, having mas- 
tered the mashie and putter, are now masters 
of the wood, are the ones who are forging to 
the front. A new school has arisen in golf, 
one that places no undue accent on any club. 

The argument that one club tells the tale of 
success in golf is an old one. Nearly every 
player differs in his choice. Putting probably 
has the call, due to the great skill at putting of 

183 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

former champions like Travis and Travers, al- 
though the mashie, the club that brought such 
great honors to Evans, is a close second in 
popular choice. But the play of such men as 
Hagen, Barnes, Herron, and Bobby Jones, in 
1913.J convinced most players that length from 
the tee, length with the wood, is entering into 
the game as a decisive factor. 

Immediately, the importance of long shoot- 
ing was unduly emphasized. The pendulum, 
swinging back, drew our attention to this new 
scheme in golf, and, as in all such cases, we 
thought we saw here a cure-all for golf 
troubles. The cry went up that lengthy shots 
would hereafter tell the story of victory and 
success in our championships. 

I do not wish to impress young players un- 
duly with the value of length from the tee and 
down the fairways. It is important, and, as 
the game is now played, perhaps its turning- 
point. But it seems to me we should be sane 
about this whole matter of golf, and, before 
adopting this doctrine,, try to consider all other 
points in common with this one. That has 
been my view of it, and the result of my find- 
ings is that golf is becoming a balanced game — 

184 ' 



ADVANTAGE OF LONG DRIVES 

that no one shot is more important than others, 
but that we must give as much attention to 
length as to approaching and putting. It seems 
to me that such a result gives the player a 
more all-around game, one lacking any par- 
ticular weakness which would bring us to too 
many defeats when playing in our own class. 
Thus I set down at the start of this chapter 
the importance of wood-shots. No young 
player now beginning the game should neglect 
his wood while mastering his mashie and put- 
ter. On the other hand, he should give like at- 
tention to each. And I placed accent on the 
wood, because it has been neglected in the 
past. We have been so impressed with the 
arguments about approaching and putting that 
we have failed to develop this other part of our 
game, which is equally important. By no 
means should one do that. Golf supremacy 
to-day and in the future comes only to that 
star who can drive long and accurately, ap- 
proach "dead''-ly, and take not more than two 
putts on any green. It is just as important to 
reach the green in the least number of strokes 
as it is to run down your ball in the fewest 
putts. 

i8S 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

Another reason I have for placing stress on 
the wood is that here is a club difficult to mas- 
ter. In my own case, I have had fair success 
in golf, but my measure of victories would 
have been far more numerous had I been able 
to control my drives in various matches. Slices 
or hooks off various tees have too frequently 
left me unplayable lies. Such shots have cost 
me much. It was such a shot against Piatt 
at Oakmont, in 19 19, during the Amateur 
which assured him a win in an extra-hole bat- 
tle. I have found control of my driving the 
most difficult play of all. Yet I really began 
my golf with such a club. So my feeling about 
the wood is: that driving cannot be practised 
too often ; that one cannot begin playing with it 
too early in the game. There is unquestionably 
some mechanical principle involved which 
makes it more difficult to use this club well 
than the irons. Results indicate this. 

Travers evidently thought so. I have seen 
him in big championships cast aside a brassie 
and take up an iron, though a long shot was 
required, one beyond reach of his iron. He 
had no confidence in the wood. He once won 
an open title by such a choice. Needing a four 

186 



ADVANTAGE OF LONG DRIVES 

on a certain hole, his tee-shot left him within 
brassie distance of a well-trapped hole. But 
Travers elected his iron, although he was 
bound to fall short. He preferred to take his 
chance in pitching dead with his mashie on his 
third shot to trying for the green with his 
brassie on his second, the one club in his bag 
to get him home. 

Although Walter Travis is credited with 
having won his high place in golf a few years 
back by his uncanny putting, — at which he had 
no equal, — it is evident that we have over- 
looked the fact that Travis was a master of 
the wood in so far as accuracy was concerned. 
He was never a long player. Thus he was 
frequently compelled to select his brassie for 
a shot that others would play with an iron. 
When he won the British Amateur in 1904, 
the first hole was a long two-shotter for Travis. 
His opponent was a tremendous driver and was 
about one hundred yards nearer the first green 
than Travis. But here Travis proved the value 
of the wood when he laid his brassie second 
dead. Had Travis been very long with his 
wood, no golfer would every have been in his 
class, for none was ever quite so accurate from 

187 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

tee to pin. I recall the story of a man who 
saw him play a match years ago, when the 
lines between tees and greens were generously 
marked with flags to show one the way. This 
fellow's story consisted mostly of the fact that 
he was afraid all along that Travis would hit 
every flag, so straight down the line were all 
his shots. 

From that description you gain a fine idea 
of what is wanted with the wood. The ball 
must be played straight down the line, without 
slice or hook. I would advise all young players 
to work above all else for such a result with 
the wood. And then add slowly to this quality 
the valuable one of distance. Driving, long 
driving, is the most satisfying shot of all in 
golf. Nothing quite pleases one so much as 
a screaming tee-shot which never seems to 
cease rolling down the fairway. Not even the 
"cluck" of a long putt going into the cup so 
exhilarates the player. Therefore, we are al- 
ways doing our level best, and then some, to 
gain the glow of satisfaction the long shots 
bring to us. The trouble is we too often 
press, too often slug, to get such a result. 
Wherein comes the cropper in golf. Nothing 

i88 



ADVANTAGE OF LONG DRIVES 

is so upsetting to one's game, as the miscued 
tee-shot or brassie. 

Now, long driving is not slugging. It is a 
nicety of timing of a clean sweep. The club 
and the wrists do the work, not the sheer 
strength of the man. There are many men 
long from the tee who have no more strength 
than the average boy of fifteen. They will 
outdrive physical giants. Gardner is said to 
"hit them a mile,'' but he is no giant in 
strength. He simply knows how. 

These are the points to remember when you 
take up your driving. Do not try to "kilF' the 
ball. Neither distance nor accuracy will be 
yours if you do. Practise driving until you 
have mastered timing. Let the club do the 
work. If long drives were the inherent right 
of the strong alone, fellows like Evans would 
never be heard from in tournaments. Yet in 
the semi-finals of the 1920 Western Amateur, 
he took fewer strokes reaching the last eigh- 
teen greens than did Bobby Jones, a powerful 
player from tee to green, to say the least. No 
indeed! length from the tee is within reach 
of any of you. Let your professional show 
you how to obtain it. 

189 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

The big handicap of all young golfers is 
play. You fellows who have splendid possi- 
bilities set them aside day after day in your 
desire for competition. Practice is a grind 
with you. True, you will putter around with 
a few balls each day while waiting for the 
first tee to clear, or you may try a few mashie- 
shots. But how many of you conscientiously 
practise, and, during your practice, work out 
with your wood? I judge that less than one 
per cent, of our beginners ever take the trouble 
to do this, once they have taken a few lessons. 
How different from other sports ! 

A college football team will practise six 
days for a game. A professional baseball team 
spends a month or so in the South each winter 
practising for the season, and then a daily 
practice session is often the schedule mapped 
out. And a 'varsity crew will practise for 
three or four months for a race. But a would- 
be golfer will not so much as set aside an hour 
or so a week for practice. To be sure, I know 
that one can overdo practice. But a golfer 
who wants to succeed is never going to accom- 
plish his ambition unless he schools himself 
to practise quite often. And not only must 

190 



ADVANTAGE OF LONG DRIVES 

that practice include putting and approaching, 
but it should contain many hours with the 
wood. 

There are ways and ways of practising. One 
gets but a little out of it if he just goes forth 
with a caddy and aimlessly hits balls. He 
should give his heart and mind to this work, 
studying each shot, analyzing each stroke, al- 
ways seeking to understand the reasons. And 
when this is not to be done, when a fault crops 
up that you alone cannot erase, the sole solu- 
tion is to call in a specialist. Golf has them in 
abundance. 

You cannot place the blame on your failure 
to play well on any other cause. And you will 
never get the keen and thrilling satisfaction 
out of golf unless you give it such a study, 
yield to it much of your time. Boys and girls 
during their school-days have an advantage 
that older beginners lack — the time they can 
give the game. Once in business, the opportu- 
nities for practice are not so many. Besides, 
the younger players have all the advantage 
in that it is easier for them to learn the game. 
The earlier in life you start to master golf, 
the more readily you accomplish your desire. 

191 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

Youth's tendency is to play correctly. Later 
on, the inclination is to use force rather than 
skill, to make work of your shots. 

There is nothing so exhilarating as a round 
or two a day with friends, when all play well. 
On the other hand, nothing is quite so upset- 
ting as such a match filled with dubs and 
bungles. To-day you make your choice as to 
which type of game is to be yours through life. 



192 




Photo by Kaplan Photo Service 



JOCK HUTCHINSON 



CHAPTER XV 

UNTIL THE LAST PUTT IS HOLED 

NEVER think of a golf match as lost. 
Keep playing the game for all you are 
worth no matter what the score or who your 
opponent may be. It is an actual fact that no 
game was ever decided until the last putt was 
holed. As a result some of the most start- 
ling upsets known in the whole world of sport 
have happened in golf. Contestants appar- 
ently hopelessly defeated have actually won 
out. In nearly every match or championship 
something happens which changes the outcome. 
I know what I 'm writing about when I put 
down these statements. I know they are based 
on facts and that every golfer will bear witness 
to their truth. And I say this here because 
possession of this knowledge is about the most 
valuable information any youngster can have 
when he begins competing in matches. 

The very first time I ever played in a big 

193 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

tournament these facts were brought to my 
attention. This was back in 191 3 in the United 
States Open Championship. Thanks to the 
soHcitations of some good friends I had al- 
lowed myself to be entered and for no other 
reason than that the experience would prove 
valuable to me. The thought of competing 
against such stars as Ted Ray, Harry Vardon, 
Jim Barnes, John McDermott then in his 
prime., to say nothing of others almost too 
numerous to mention, seemed to me to be sheer 
nonsense when it came down to the hope of 
doing well. In short,, I felt that I really had 
no business playing as I would be almost cer- 
tain to hold up the course at some time or other. 
What happened was a greater surprise to 
me than to any one else. At the end of three 
rounds I found myself blessed with the good 
luck of fine scores and a fine lead. Had I been 
equal to turning in a fair score on the last 
round the title would have been mine then and 
there. But for some unaccountable reason the 
thought of winning actually overwhelmed me 
as I began my last round, with the result that 
I failed to miss a single trap on the way out. 
Holes that I had never had much trouble in 

194 



UNTIL THE LAST PUTT IS HOLED 

negotiating in fours, called for fives and sixes. 
At the end of the morning my total was un- 
commonly large. There was not a person in 
the gallery following me that would have given 
a nickel for my chances. There was a sudden 
change. Chip-shots started to drop dead to 
pins; putts that had been running by, com- 
menced clucking into the cup with cheerful 
regularity; and drives began traveling far and 
true. Soon I found myself back in the run- 
ning. When the scores were all recorded I 
found myself in a triple tie for first place. 

I shall never forget that play-oflf. That part 
of it which I am going to set down here., the 
part that more than any other one was respon- 
sible for my victory, will prove to you how 
uncertain is golf, and how true the remark 
that a match is never over until the last putt 
is holed. Vardon, Ray and I were playing the 
fifth hole, one of 420 yards over exacting 
grounds. On the right of the fairway was a 
fringe of trees beyond which ran the inevitable 
boundary. On the left there was long grass. 
Thus a drive had to be both accurate and long. 
As I recall the play, Ray pulled his tee shot 
well to the left and into the long grass, making 

195 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

it impossible for him to reach the green with 
his second. Vardon and I were well down 
the middle within easy reach of the green. His 
second caught its right hand corner. 

It was raining hard at the time so I took un- 
usual care to see that the grip of my club was 
dry before attempting my approach. In some 
manner it got wet so that it turned in my 
hands just as I was playing the shot, with the 
result that my ball slid off the face of my club 
in the general direction of the fringe of trees. 
Those of you who play golf know the many 
valuable strokes that are lost in trying to avoid 
trees when playing through them. Thus you 
will appreciate that when I had met with this 
misfortune I was quick to believe my chances 
lost. If luck was with me I might possibly 
play out for the loss of but a single stroke, but 
the chances were that it would take me two or 
three before I would be in a position to reach 
the green. 

I have discovered often that when one is 
expecting to get the worst of the break in a 
game, he is more than likely to be rewarded 
with the best. Such was my good fortune in 
this instance, for in some tmaccountablie way 

196 



UNTIL THE LAST PUTT IS HOLED 

my ball had bounded through the trees and 
out-of-bounds. In those days the penalty for 
such an event was the loss of distance only. 
Playing another ball I took care that nothing 
on my part would cause it to go astray. This 
one went true to the green and thanks to a 
mediocre shot on the part of Vardon I man- 
aged to halve the hole with both him and Ray. 
But as I look back upon that particular part 
of our match I attribute my luck there as the 
cause of my success in the end. Had my sec- 
ond failed to jump out-of-bounds I 'm quite 
sure my defeat would have occurred then and 
there. 

When William C. Fownes won the United 
States Amateur Championship in 1910 he had 
every reason to believe that "Chick" Evans,, his 
opponent in the semi-finals, would be a certain 
victor, considering his lead of two up and 
three to go. "Chick" was then in his teens, 
but his game was almost as sound as to-day 
and surely as graceful. When they played 
the short sixteenth and "Chick" with his lead 
dropped a mashie shot twelve feet from the 
cup and Fownes had failed to get on, every 
one was sure "Chick" was the winner. This 

197 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

seemed even more certain when Fownes* sec- 
ond was away. But the latter is a great fighter, 
one never to give up. Living up to this 
reputation he holed the putt. This left "Chick" 
with two putts for a half,, and one for a victory. 

It is not generally known but in those days 
Evans did his tournament putting with a lofted 
mid-iron. This gave the ball a decided jump 
when it left the face of the club. Such a shot 
is not conducive to good putting, especially 
when the greens are fast and true as they were 
on that day. Thus his putt jumped his ball 
so that it ran some four feet beyond the pin. 
Again he attempted the same shot and again 
his ball went by the hole. So instead of se- 
curing a win or a half Evans lost the hole. 
The next hole went to Fownes when he played 
a magnificent iron dead to the pin. 

The last hole was romantic. They came to 
the tee all even, the title to rest on the out- 
come of their play here. Both reached the 
green in two strokes, Evans away. Robert 
Hunter, a friend of "Chick's," was caddying 
for him,, and incidentally giving him advice. 
They both studied the putt carefully, a difficult 
putt, too, but not more so than the one Fownes 

198 



UNTIL THE LAST PUTT IS HOLED 

faced. Again "Chick'' took his lofted mid- 
iron from the bag. He calculated to a nicety 
the few feet he had to make to reach the cup, 
but again the jump imparted to his ball by the 
iron caused it to roll merrily on some eight feet 
beyond the hole. Fownes, appreciating that 
his opportunity was at hand,, carefully laid his 
ball within a foot of the cup. 

So "Chick'' found himself at last in the 
embarrassing position of having to sink a 
treacherous eight-footer with his mid-iron in 
order to stave off defeat — a tremendous handi- 
cap after having had a lead of two and three 
but a few minutes before. Hunter here fol- 
lowed "Chick" in sighting the line. Then he 
offered some advice and the latter immediately 
putted. The ball had scarcely started when 
"Chick" turned to his friend and remarked, 
"Bob, I never hit it." He was right, as his 
ball stopped about half a foot short of the hole. 
Whereupon Fownes stepped up and sank his 
for the match, an uphill victory if ever there 
was one. This is just another instance that a 
match is never won until the last putt is in, no 
matter how big the handicap one finds himself 
facing. 

199 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

Five years later Gardner won our amateur 
title at the Detroit Country Club, although 
every one — except Gardner himself— had it 
figured that Max Marston had eliminated him 
in the semi-final round. Marston had held a 
lead most of the day until it finally narrowed 
down to the stage where he was three up and 
five to go. Gardner staged a rally but when 
they came to the last hole he faced the alterna- 
tive of winning it or of being put out. Both 
put their tee shots on the green. Marston was 
away and he played his putt to within eighteen 
inches of the cup. Gardner had to sink a ten- 
footer to win; at least it appeared to be that 
way. His trial was one of those exasperating 
ones which squirm all round the edge of a hole 
but fail to drop in. With a typical smile this 
sterling sportsman strode forward evidently 
willing to concede the victory. For a second 
he hesitated, finally deciding that Max should 
go "through the motions'' because it happened 
to be the tell-tale shot of their match. The 
latter stepped quickly to his ball, took his 
stance, putted an^, to the amazement of the 
large gallery, failed to hole out. It was a dra- 
matic moment. Fate had been unkind to 

200 



UNTIL THE LAST PUTT IS HOLED 

Marston in that instance for on the next hole 
Gardner disposed of him, and the next day- 
defeated John Anderson in the finals. 

One never can tell! At Pittsburgh in 1919 
I lost a match which I thought was mine just 
before Piatt turned the tables on me. In this 
affair I found myself four down and five to 
go, certainly not an enviable position. But by 
a big effort I managed to square the account 
on the last hole. Playing the first extra hole 
my drive caught the long grass to the left of 
the fairway; Piatt's ball was well placed but 
too far back for him to reach the green on his 
second. I felt that if I could reach the green 
that here was my chance to win. As my lie was 
not particularly good I selected a mashie, thus 
necessitating my playing it with full force. It 
was my good fortune to reach the green, my 
ball coming to rest some eighteen feet from the 
pin. Piatt's second fell some forty yards 
short, leaving him a nasty approach. On ac- 
count of the lay-out of that particular green 
and the approaches it was up to Piatt to per- 
form miracles to prevent defeat. And that is 
just what he did, for his third shot was so ac- 
curate that it all but rolled in for a three. I se- 

201 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

cured my four on a hole,, that but a minute or 
two before I thought was surely mine and with 
it the defeat of my opponent. The next hole 
cost me that match. 

Golf has often the most topsy-turvy changes 
that "^port knows of. Such was the match 
played between *'Chick" Evans and Eben Byers 
during the 19 13 Amateur at Garden City. 
^Chick" was six up and thirteen to play when 
the fireworks began. Byers started them after 
a day of poor golf for a former champion. Of 
a sudden he began holing putts from all angles 
and distances, and before ''Chick'' knew it they 
were at the last hole with his lead cut to one up. 
Both pitched safely to the green at this stage 
of the match and it looked like a sure thing for 
Evans when he ran his putt to within a few 
feet of the cup. But when Byers had made his 
try he had unintentionally laid "Chick'' a dead 
stymie. "Chick" was forced to jump the other's 
ball. In making the attempt he ran some eigh- 
teen inches beyond. Now all that Byers needed 
to square the match was to sink one of about 
like distance. Byers tried, no doubt as to that, 
but he tried just a bit too much for his ball 
squirmed right by the hole and laid "Chick" 

202 



UNTIL THE LAST PUTT IS HOLED 

another stymie,, this one impossible to negotiate. 
In the end the hole was v/on by Byers. It took 
three extra holes for "Chick" to win out. 

Time and again have I been impressed with 
the fact that it is never too late to win a golf 
match. You never can tell when you are going 
to come along with an unbeatable streak that 
will bring you from behind under the most 
hopeless of conditions and send you home the 
winner. It is never too late to try. As an in- 
stance of this let me set down the story of a 
match I played several years ago with Mike 
Brady. We had many mutual friends, and 
these fellows finally talked us into a friendly 
battle in the nature of a home and home series. 
The first half of it was to be staged at Mike's 
club and the second at mine. It was to be a 
72 hole affair. 

At the end of my journey at Mike's club I 
was six down. This would ordinarily mean I 
was not playing up to form. As a matter of 
fact I was. The cause for Mike's lead was the 
kind of golf he was producing. I simply could 
not keep pace with him although my 73 in the 
morning and 74 in the afternoon shows how 
well I was doing. Friends came to me after- 

203 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

ward and had a great deal of fun at my ex- 
pense. I took it all in good part knowing that 
another day was coming and that it might be 
my turn next. 

After the first eighteen at my club Mike was 
still six up. I was still hoping, but fully cog- 
nizant that my task of winning under the cir- 
cumstances was as tough a job as I ever en- 
countered. When we began play in the after- 
noon Mike took the first two holes and I found 
myself eight down and sixteen to go. I re- 
solved right there I would n't lose another hole. 
I just could n't in order to have a ghost of a 
chance. Brady, on the other hand, must have 
felt right here that the match was as good as 
won. They never are. He missed his second 
to the third green and I picked up a hole, as 
well as the fourth and fifth. Five down was 
better. The sixth and seventh were halved and 
the eighth was mine, thanks to a deadly ap- 
proach. Then it came to me that I had a good 
chance and I could feel myself getting all keyed 
up for the eflfort. 

The ninth hole at Woodland, where we were 
playing, is 460 yards. Under the conditions we 
found this called for a long drive and iron to 

204 



UNTIL THE LAST PUTT IS HOLED 

reach the green. My drive was O. K. but my 
second landed plump into a sand-trap near the 
green. Mike's was on the edge. He had but 
to chip or putt dead to the hole, so it seemed, 
to regain his lead of five up. But Mike did n't 
do this so we halved the hole. On top of that 
he played the tenth and eleventh badly and I 
soon found myself but two down and seven 
to go, a far less serious situation than the one 
confronting me a few holes before. 

We continued to the fifteenth with nothing 
worthy of mention. Here I was counting on a 
win with my ball on in three and Mike in four, 
especially when my approach putt stopped eigh- 
teen inches from the cup. But one never can 
tell what will happen in golf. Mike made a 
splendid try for a half when he attempted his 
twenty- footer, so good that it stopped on the 
very edge of the cup — seemingly waiting for a 
breeze to whisp it in — and directly in my line. 
Here was a situation to unravel. If I played 
for the cup I would be sure to sink his ball and 
probably fail to run down my own. Ordinarily 
I would have jumped at the chance of run- 
ning down both of them. But in this case there 
were but three holes remaining and I was al- 

205 



GOLF FACTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

ready two down. I calculated that it was bet- 
ter to be two down and three to play than to 
take the chance. I had to be satisfied with a 
half. 

The next hole fell to me. Thus I was but 
one down with two to play. I must say that 
Brady was in a most trying position. It is a 
matter of no small moment in golf to find a big 
lead swept to almost nothing, particularly when 
your own game seems to have suffered a let 
down. That was the situation Brady was fight- 
ing. That was why I was determined to press 
my present advantage to the very limit. So I 
played the seventeenth without a flaw and won 
it. At last we were square. This was due to 
having pinned my faith to the belief that a 
match is never lost until the last putt has been 
holed. We halved the last hole. Consequently 
an extra thirty-six were agreed upon on neutral 
links to settle our argument. This I managed 
to win. 

So I 'm a firm believer in the golf doctrine 
that it is never too late to win a match. It has 
certainly worked in my case and I 'm quite sure 
every golfer has had many similar experiences. 
To such an extent is this so that I Ve set down 

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UNTIL THE LAST PUTT IS HOLED 

these few salient examples for youngsters in 
order that they may profit by them. He 's a 
wise golfer who knows this fact, and one who 
is decidedly hard to defeat. By all means re- 
member to play the game for all you are worth 
no matter what the score or who your opponent 
may be, and the number of unexpected victories 
which fall to your lot will be most surprising. 
That 's a tip worth pasting in your cap to be 
read before every match is begun. 



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